


which of your lives is this?

by writingforhugs



Series: Italy and Beyond AU [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: (mild), Art, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Italy, Katniss Everdeen falls in love faster than she'll admit, Peeta is the king of emotional intelligence, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Travel, Wine, lack of SSDGM mentality, the mystical world of pre-covid travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 84,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingforhugs/pseuds/writingforhugs
Summary: Travelling solo from Rome to Venice, the last thing Katniss expects to find is love.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: Italy and Beyond AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031565
Comments: 142
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 2020 was meant to be the year I could finally afford to go abroad, but alas, poor yorick, 2020 doth ruineth all, so instead I thought to myself: 'why not write a holiday fic? live vicariously through fictional people visiting places you've never been to' and then I listened to the first minute of Ravel's 'Miroirs III: Une Barque sur L'Ocean' on repeat and wrote this. 
> 
> That being said, I punched my artistic license card about a million times on this one SO if you have any corrections about the places I mention, please let me know :)
> 
> Title from Joan Tierney's brilliant 'A Conversation w/ a snared fox at the edge of the field' (@filmnoirsbian on tumblr).
> 
> Finally, some of you were upset with my last Everlark fic, which, like, I get it, sorry, so rest assured that the angst in this is MINIMAL and the ending is HAPPY and I aimed for true ROMANCE!!!

**{1} Sant’Oreste and Caprarola**

I meet him in Italy.

I rent a car out of Rome, a little olive-green Fiat 127 with a surprising amount of power even up the hillier, winding roads, and make the short drive to Sant’Oreste. I park on the side of the street, wedging the car against the wall in the shade. The town is quiet when I arrive, cicadas chirping, a soft breeze pushing through the air. The piazzas have a few people loitering but the locals seem to be inside or out for the day. The buildings are grey and brown brick, many painted soft colours. Pale pinks, whites, yellows, and oranges. They glow in the sun, windows shuttered to keep out the heat. Flowers droop and doze in flowerboxes and in terracotta pots balanced on doorsteps.

Donning a sunhat, I stop at a convenience store to buy something to eat. The exterior is something I’ve gotten used to in my time in small Italian towns, something you’d never see in the States. It’s worn in the way things are when they’re often in the sun, with faded nectarine-orange awnings over the windows. Inside it’s cool and jam-packed with a mix of local produce and brand names. I pick up some fruit, snacks, some water, putting it all away in my canvas bag for later. Then I do a slow circuit through the streets, admiring the quiet and the views.

Soon enough I find a little café and order a coffee. There’s a sprawl of tiny metal tables and chairs across the cobbles. I claim one and hide from the sun beneath a parasol. I pull out my book and a packet of cigarettes. It’s utterly peaceful as I read, legs stretched out, warm coffee slowly cooling beside me. After a chapter or two, I sit back and just think. About Sant’Oreste, about my apartment in Rome, about how my lease will end in just over a week. I think about the warmth of the sun. I hear distant bells, which reminds me of the cattle which used to be herded up the main street in my home town. My father used to lean against the fence post, coal dust on his face, singing to the cattle as they passed in his deep, rolling voice.

The voice that interrupts my thoughts is not as melodic, but noticeable nevertheless. I hear it first because it’s just _so_ American. It’s loud and brash and his Italian isn’t great, straight out of a guidebook, or perhaps verbatim from Google Translate.

“Mi scusi,” he says. I don’t realise I’m the object of his attention right away, so he adds, “Mir scusi, signorina.” I look up, squinting in the sunlight. I lower my cigarette over the ashtray and wait for him to keep talking, which he does. “Mi—uh—mi può dire dove—si trova la satzione—degil autobus?”

_Excuse me, can you tell me where the bus station is?_

I raise my eyebrow, taking him in. He’s blond, tanned from the sun. Very blond. American sunglasses on his face. A rumpled button-up that looks soft and frayed, cargo shorts and hiking boots. A huge backpack on his shoulders. Phone in hand. Tourist.

He flounders when I don’t say anything.

“Uh…” he says. “Sto cercadando? L’autobus?” _I’m looking for the bus._ The words lift at the end because it’s a question, but also because of his own doubts as to his pronunciation.

I ash the cigarette. “Non ha senso prendere l’autobus ce ne sono solo due a settimana,” I tell him. _There’s no sense in taking the bus, there are only two per week._ It’s almost funny, watching him trying to track what I’m saying and getting lost. I expect him to say _grazie_ and move on like he understood me, only to spend forty euros and two hours in a taxi instead, but he just makes a sound at the back of his throat like he’s short-circuiting, and he glances across the piazza and then back at me and says, under his breath and in an accent that sounds like home, _fucking hell_.

“Uh…” he says.

“There’s only one bus,” I tell him. His face brightens at the English and then darkens at the revelation of my own accent. “It comes twice a week. It’s no use getting the bus if you want to get out of Sant’Oreste.”

“Oh,” he says, disappointed. He sets his backpack down between his legs. It looks heavy. He pulls out a paper map from one of his apparently cavernous cargo short pockets like he’s a middle-aged father, unfurls it, and stares at it.

“Sit down,” I say, shifting more upright in my chair, drawing my legs back towards myself. “Sit down,” I repeat, when he only lowers the map but keeps standing. “I’ll help you.”

He exhales and pulls other chair out, making a racket over the cobbles.

“Thank you,” he sighs. “I thought there was a regular service.”

“Not around here,” I say. I crush the half-finished cigarette into the dish.

“Well,” he replies. “Shit.”

“Where are you trying to go?”

“Rome. I’m meant to be meeting some friends there tomorrow night.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“Hitchhiked. They weren’t going any further.”

“Right.” I eye him. He looks frazzled, a little burned, too, the bridge of his nose beginning to turn red.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “This isn’t your problem, and I’ve interrupted your morning.”

“I’m the one who invited you to sit down.”

He takes off his sunglasses with a heavy sigh, setting them down on the table, and scrubs his hands over his face and back through his hair. When he looks back at me, I feel something spark in my chest. It feels like surprise. He’s very handsome. Strong jaw, pink lips, and his eyes—it’s like staring into two pockets of the sky.

“I’m going to get some coffee,” he says, wiping his palms over his thighs. “Can I get you anything?”

I tilt my near-empty cup. “Sure. Thanks”

He stands, heads for the café. Comes back short of the door and rifles through his backpack. “Wallet,” he says, lifting it, before hurrying away again without asking me for a coffee order. I shake my head and pick up his map, trying to wrangle its many folds.

He comes back after ten minutes with a tray holding my coffee and an empty cup, a little kettle, a small spoon, a miniature pitcher of milk, and a tiny pot of sugar.

“I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” he says, setting the tray down and unloading the items. “Sorry. I just asked them to give you the same.”

“In Italian?” I ask.

He laughs slightly as he sits down, vanishing away his wallet. “No. I mean, I tried. But they speak English, thank god.” He blinks. Looks at my cup. “Unless they’ve given you something completely weird.”

I take a sip. It’s exactly as I ordered first. “It’s alright,” I say, and he nods, satisfied, before beginning to assemble his own drink.

“Tea?” I ask as he pours.

“Coffee makes me crazy,” he demurs. I nod. Fair enough. I watch him add a smidge of sugar and a decent helping of milk. He stirs, the spoon making a satisfying clinking sound against the enamel. Then he drinks.

“Good?” I ask, and he nods, eyes closing in some kind of bliss.

We sit quietly for perhaps thirty seconds before he spies by book.

“May I?” he says, already picking it up. I gesture _yes_ and he flips through it. “ _Under the Net_?” he asks, eyeing the cover and then looking through the yellowed pages. My bookmark slips out but he quickly returns it to its place.

“It’s about philosophy. The protagonist is a struggling writer in 1950s London. He steals a movie-star dog at one point.”

“A movie-star dog?”

“Yes. A dog actor. Who stars in films?”

“Ah.”

“I’ve read it a million times.”

“A favourite?”

“Yes.”

He scans the first page. “Is it good?”

“I think so.”

“I suppose it would have to be for you to read it over and over.”

I shrug. “Sometimes it’s the familiarity that makes you re-visit something. It’s not always because it’s good.”

“But I take that this is? Good, I mean.”

“Yes. Very good.”

He sets the book down.

“I’ve definitely interrupted your quiet afternoon,” he says. He peers around the piazza as an older man and woman cycle past. “I mean… piazza, a coffee, a favourite book? I should have picked someone else to interrupt.”

I look around and spot another patron of the café, a burly man with a red face that belies his blood pressure.

“I doubt he would have given you much help,” I say wryly.

“I can’t see myself buying him a coffee,” he says, eyes widening comically. A smile pulls at my mouth. He leans back in his seat and swirls the tea in his cup. “So,” he begins. “What are you doing here in Sant’Oreste, if you don’t mind me asking? It’s not exactly a tourist hotspot.”

“Well, it was originally for the peace and quiet,” I say, eyeing him. “But I’m living in Rome at the moment and just fancied a day out of the city.”

He nods. “It’s nice here.”

“Did you intend to stop here, then?”

“Not really. I mean, I’ve been to plenty of random tiny towns by this point. That’s just how hitchhiking is.” He shrugs. “I’ve sat in milk vans, on the backs of trucks carrying chickens or buckets of olives or figs. I’ve even had the pleasure of sitting in an actual car once or twice. But yeah. Most of the time I’m just grateful someone is willing to give me a ride.”

“So you’re backpacking through Italy?”

“Yep. Decided to take a year out from everything back home. Go around Europe for a bit, see all the beautiful places, you know? Find myself.” He waggles his fingers.

“Has it worked so far?”

“A little,” he shrugs. “Solo ravel gives you plenty of time for introspection.” I nod. That it does. “How about you?” he asks. “You live in Rome?”

“For the last four months. I was only meant to be there for two weeks but I’ve liked it too much to leave just yet.”

“Work or pleasure?”

“Pleasure. I backpacked all last year, but I liked Italy a lot, so I’ve come back, been taking my time. I’ll probably move on in the winter. Head for the Alps.”

“They’ll be beautiful in the snow.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“Won’t you miss the summer?”

“I only want the summer when it’s like this,” I say, looking around. And by that, I mean trees heavy with citrus fruit, cool, shadowed houses with tiled floors, shutters on windows, cicadas, wide blue skies, streams to wade into, winding roads to endlessly drive along. The summer I don’t want is the summer back home, which was a damp, close heat, like wading through a bog for months on end.

“But when it’s the winter, I want snow. I want it to be _cold_. That’s what it was like when I was a kid. It got so deep we’d have to dig ourselves out of our house. I want that. Not middling temperatures and rain.”

“I can hardly imagine snow when I have this,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “But I understand. Snow when I was a kid was so much better than the swampy summer months.”

I make a sound of agreement, remembering flashes of my childhood for a brief moment.

“So you’re from the States too?” he asks. I nod.

“Panem, born and raised.”

His eyes widen. “Really? Me too!”

I laugh in disbelief. I thought he sounded familiar. “Thousands of miles away and two people from the smallest state end up sitting at the same table in a tiny Italian piazza.”

He looks at me. “Must be fate.”

“Must be.”

“What part of Panem?”

“Seamtown. Mining community.”

“I know it. It’s like, an hour’s drive from me. I’m in Merchantville. Or was.”

“Boujie.”

“Hardly.”

“More so than the Seam.”

“Well, yes.”

Seamtown is my home, but it’s poor and rundown, a place with two traffic lights and four convenience stores and eight churches. No one visits the Seam. People either live and die there, or leave and never come back. Growing up, I’d gone to Merchantville all the time, to drive or cycle through the quiet, leafy suburbs. It was by no means a wealthy area, but certainly one of the more affluent places in the state.

“We’re just two small-towners in beautiful Italy,” he says.

“It’s nicer than Panem, that’s for sure.”

He scoffs. “Are you being a snob about Europe?”

“You know I’m right,” I say teasingly. It’s a conversation I’ve had a million times with the Americans I’ve bumped into along the way. “Where are you going to find a place like this in the US?”

“I mean… you could find a square, sure. It’s just that there would be a Starbucks in it. And a McDonalds. And probably a huge road through the middle.”

“Exactly. Not nearly as photogenic.”

“Ah, but what about the mountains? Panem has the best mountains.”

I think of them. Their domed slopes, deep forests, lavender skies at dusk.

“All mountains are beautiful,” I say.

“I think you’re right about that.”

An idea sparks in my head before I can think better of it, and then I blurt it out.

“You should come with me.” He looks at me, brows shifting. I clarify. “I have a car. I’m going a little further north this afternoon and I’m heading back to Rome tomorrow. I could get you back in time, if you don’t mind the little diversion.”

He stares, mouth slightly open. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” I say. My heart is pounding. I’ve done a fair amount of spontaneous and sometimes stupid things on my travels, being solo classing as one of them, but this feels different. “Unless you want to pay for a taxi or stay here until Thursday’s bus.”

He considers his options for a moment, and then leans forward, an earnest expression on his face. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” he says, even as I’m shaking my head. “I’ve already subjected you to my horrible Italian, interrupted your afternoon, and–”

“Your Italian is fine,” I murmur. “And I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”

He looks amazed for a moment, and then nods. “Okay then,” he exhales. “Thank you so much. You’re very kind.”

I shake my head again. “It’s alright.”

“I’m serious. _Thank you_.”

I exhale a small laugh. I almost feel nervous under his intense gaze. But it’s not a bad nervousness. It just feels immense, somehow.

“You really don’t need to thank me,” I say.

“I’m going to keep doing it until you throw me out.”

“I’ll make sure it’s on the main road to Rome,” I say into my cup.

“Again with the kindness,” he says melodramatically, a hand going to his chest. I drain my coffee and grab my book and put in my bag. He puts his empty cup on the tray and I put mine on it too and he takes it back into the café. When he comes back, he gathers the rest of his things.

“We can go now, if you’re ready?” I say.

“I’m more than ready.”

I stand and wait for him to zip up the many compartments of his rucksack and haul the damn thing onto his shoulders. “Is there a convenience store here?” he asks.

“Just down the road,” I tell him, and we start walking across the piazza, into the sunlight pouring into the space. There’s a companionable, easy distance between us, the kind held by strangers who feel some modicum of fondness towards one another when in a strange place far from home. He bridges it as we pass beneath a stone archway by sticking out his hand.

“I’m Peeta, by the way,” he says, smiling a flash of white, if slightly crooked, teeth. His eyes crinkle at the corners. I put my hand in his. His grip is firm but not tight, his palms wide and square.

“Katniss,” I reply, “It’s nice to meet you, Peeta.”

We walk quietly to the convenience store I was in only an hour earlier. I wait outside while Peeta ducks in. When he comes back, I offer my tote bag to carry the few items he has with him. Then he shows me the postcard he’s bought. It’s a photo of Sant’Oreste from above, the setting sun painting every building in a warm orange glow, the trees and rolling land around it spilling out of frame.

“You sending it home?” I ask when he pulls out a pen and leans the card against the brick to scribble on the back.

“No, no. This is just for me. I collect them.”

I nod. “They’re cheaper than most other souvenirs.”

“Lighter, too.”

I take him on a winding route back through Sant’Oreste, so he can see at least a bit more of the town. We head down the Vilae del Vignola and look at how the land drops sharply away from beneath us. We point at the forest at the bottom, a wildlife reserve, and stare at the distant Monte Soratte with its tree-covered limestone peaks. Then we continue down the hill at a pleasant pace.

I learn that Peeta is a chatterbox, but also that I don’t mind the conversation. After months and months of being mostly alone and only occasionally managing to meet up with friends or strike up brief companionships with people along the way, I’ve found that although I can take my time and move at my own pace, I don’t have someone to share it with. No one to share in the awe produced by a particularly beautiful building or landscape. No one to share fresh gelato with.

Finally we reach my car, and I think Peeta is glad, thumbs hooked under the straps of his backpack to alleviate some of the weight.

“Here I am,” I say, pointing to the little Fiat still sat in the shade.

“Nice,” Peeta replies. I pop open the boot and we fit his rucksack in.

“What do you even have in there?” I ask when I finally heave the door back down.

“All my worldly possessions,” he says, rubbing his shoulder. I understand his predicament, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate being able to keep everything in my rented apartment rather than have to cart it around on my own back.

Peeta stands back so I can pull the car out into the street, and then he gets in. He’s not particularly tall, but he’s broad, making the already small car feel smaller. It’s odd to have someone next to me, to have to learn out further to see when we reach a junction in the road.

“Goodbye Sant’Oreste,” Peeta says as we peel down a narrow street. He cranes his head to look at a bell tower. “Best two hours of my life.”

I shoot him an amused look that he doesn’t see.

“Where’re we headed, then?” he asks after ten minutes. The windows have been rolled down and I’ve tied a scarf around my head to stop my hair flying around (but also because it makes me feel like I’m in an old Italian film). Peeta has put his sunglasses on and the open collar of his shirt flaps about, revealing hints of a tanned chest and freckled skin.

“Not that I don’t mind driving around,” he says. “But I did get into your car in the hope you weren’t a Bundy.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re also a stranger to me,” I remind him. “And I think Bundy was a bit more charming than I am.”

“God, can you imagine? _Italian_ Bundy—too charming!” he exclaims. I snort. Peeta grins. “I would have hoped I’d have already spotted an axe if you had one hidden in this teeny tiny car.” He mimes looking into the backseat and pops the glovebox.

“This isn’t a _teeny tiny car_ ,” I protest.

“Compared to Ameri—”

“American cars are unnecessarily big. And so bad for the environment.”

Peeta nods. We zip down a hill, passing woodlands and meadows.

“You’re into saving the environment?” he asks.

“You’re not?”

“Of course I am. I’m just saying… will you kick me out if I say I’m a gas-guzzling, meat-eating, single-use plastic using monster?”

“I’ll just run you over, save us all the trouble,” I say, unable to stop the amused smirk pulling at my mouth.

Peeta clucks his tongue. “Ah, I don’t know. That doesn’t sound very fuel efficient. Who knows if I’d be down with just one hit? You might have to burn more fuel by going back up the hill and running me over again.”

I groan. “I won’t run you over!” I say, and he laughs, raising his hands.

“You should know that I’ve been as eco-friendly as possible this whole trip. Car-sharing, taking trains, you name it. I have my reusable water bottles and everything. And I’m not buying fast fashion because I can’t fit it in my backpack.”

“You’re a paradigm of sustainable living.”

“Hey, it’s the little things,” he laughs, resting his elbow on the window frame. “Still, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Which was…?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Oh! Caprarola. I want to see Villa Farnese. It’s not far, perhaps forty minutes.” I reach my arm back to rummage for the guidebook in the little compartment in the back of my seat but Peeta leans over instead and pulls it out. “Caprarola,” I repeat. “Page 74.”

He flips through until he reaches it.

“I was going to drive up, visit the villa, spend the night. And there’s a lake nearby that I wanted to see in the morning before driving back to Rome.”

“Spend the night? Where are you staying?”

“I’ve got a hotel room.” Peeta blinks down at the guidebook. “There’s enough room for you as well,” I tell him. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just add another person onto the booking.”

“Are you sure?”

“I can leave you in the car if you want. I’ll roll down the window and everything.”

Peeta rolls his eyes. “Fine. But let me pay for the room. I need to start paying you back for helping me in the first place.”

“It’s nothing. You’re providing me company.”

“The exchange rate is really bad, though, and the quality of the company? No guarantees it’s worth what you pay. God, I would not—”

“Alright! Alright, fine. You pay for the room!” I relent. Peeta grins. I shoot him a look. “You better not snore.”

“I don’t. I bet you do.”

“I sleep like the dead.”

“I’ll confirm that in the morning.”

The drive to Caprarola is fairly uneventful in sum, but compared to my previous months of solitary drives, it’s busy and loud. Peeta unloads some of the food in my bag around 1pm, and we share our spoils as I drive. We eat the local plums I picked up, throwing the stones out of the window, and savour the salty, cheddary tang of a box of crackers. We listen to the radio and chat at some points, and fall silent for others, just taking in the view. Peeta consults his map to make sure we’re going in the right direction, which we are, and then we’re there.

Caprarola is just as small as Sant’Oreste, but slightly more of a tourist location. I find a place to park and then we get out to collect our things.

“Let me tell you,” Peeta says as he pulls a smaller bag from his rucksack and puts a few carry-around essentials inside it. “It’s a novelty to not have to carry my bag with me.”

I smile, shutting the boot and locking up the car. I push the wing mirror in just in case an over-zealous driver tries to knock it off, and then adjust my sunhat. The Italian sun is no joke, even from someone with tan skin like myself.

“Have you got sunscreen?” I ask Peeta, whose nose is a little red.

“Somewhere,” he shrugs. I tut like a grandmother and hand him my bottle.

“Honestly,” I say, shaking my head. He grins and slathers some on. Now we both smell faintly of coconut, and are protected from skin cancer.

We agree to first find a bathroom, then check in at the hotel, and then head straight for Villa Farnese.

“Then we can just wonder around, go and grab dinner,” I suggest. Peeta has spread his map out over the bonnet of the Fiat, while I briefly re-consult my guidebook.

“Sounds good to me,” he says.

“Anywhere you want to visit?” I ask, not that there are many places to go nor much time for the leisurely stroll I was aiming for. Given the unexpected nature of his visit here, I don’t expect him to have much knowledge about the town at all.

“Nope,” Peeta says. I nod. He folds up his map. I put my guidebook in my tote bag.

“Let’s go,” I proclaim, and we walk deeper into the town. We find a bathroom pretty easily, and I use the opportunity to re-braid my hair and apply some deodorant and lip balm. When I come back out, Peeta is chatting with an old Italian woman, her broken English much better than his attempts at the country’s language. When he spots me, he shakes her hand, says _grazie,_ walks over.

“Making friends?” I ask, and he grins.

“She told me I looked like an American man she used to know. I asked her if he was a baker but sadly he was a soldier.”

“Why a baker?”

“My grandfather was a baker, and he lived in Italy for a few years. You never know—it’s a small world.”

We find the hotel, a small place with a lot of character, and I explain to the receptionist that I need to add another person to my checking. Once it’s all sorted out, we begin walking up the main street of Caprarola, a narrow affair with cars parked along one side. The buildings are painted terracotta pink and a baby yellow, with balconies, many with flowers, looking out above our heads. Everything looks a little worn, but homely. The paint might have faded or chipped over time, but they are homes and businesses and thus welcoming. The doors are all arched, and the windows are of course shuttered. The smattering of cafes along the way have seating outside in the shade, and gaps in the buildings give us beautiful snapshot views of the landscape beyond and the rest of the town. It’s a slight incline, and in the warm, I’m glad to have applied some more deodorant while I had the chance.

“It must be a little annoying to live here,” Peeta says as we pass by the open doors at one balcony a floor up and hear the sound of conversation and music from inside. “Tourists always walking up and down.”

“I suppose it’s fairly quiet in the winter months,” I say. “But they can’t help living in such beautiful places.”

Villa Farnese, an imposing sixteenth century mansion, peeks through the gap in the buildings at the top of the street. We walk along the narrow pavement to get out of the way of a few errant cars, and then we’re in front of the Villa, which rises in front of us, a great white block of a building, set back from everything else with a series of terraces and rounded staircases on both sides. It’s a big place, the flourishes of the architecture perfectly balanced.

“Woah,” I say. “It looks like a fortress.”

We pay five euros to get in, climbing the curving steps to an understated doorway at the end of a short drawbridge, into a room with frescoed walls and ceilings. There are only a handful of other tourists milling around, so we can move with ease, speaking in hushed voices as we walk through cool, often empty rooms, stopping to stare or gasp or murmur and read the signs telling visitors of the history of the place.

It’s a pentagon in shape, with a central courtyard overlooked by arched interior balconies on all sides. The corridors that loop around the building have pillars on one side leading to the open air of the courtyard, and the opposite walls are covered in painted shapes in green and red and bruised purple. Although faded with time, I can only imagine how bright and breathtaking it was five hundred years ago.

We move into another room, a huge, rectangular space with vaulted ceilings packed with paintings.

“Wow,” Peeta breathes, head tilted back so far it’s about to roll off his shoulders. He stares, wide-eyed, at the frescoed ceilings, pausing and staring for a long time at work done by a long-dead artist. I go to the windows, which are deeply recessed but wide, letting in plenty of light, and peer out at the view of Caprarola in the mid-afternoon sun.

“It was built on the remains of an incomplete castle,” Peeta says when I step away from the windows and join him by a visitor information board. He points to the text. “That explains why it looks like a fortress.”

“It’s amazing,” I murmur. “I’m not an artist or architect… but this is stunning.”

“I’m no art historian, but I can tell that these are all Mannerist.”

“Mannerist?” I say quizzingly. Peeta nods enthusiastically.

“I used to sketch and paint a lot,” he explains. “I would spend hours in the local library as a kid looking up pictures of art from all around the world. I picked up a few things here and there.”

I smile. His excitement is infectious. “Tell me more about Mannerism,” I say. “Give me a tour, Peeta.”

He takes a breath, eyebrows lifting. “Jesus, alright,” he says. He thinks for a moment and then begins.

“Mannerism was around in the early to mid-1500s I think, before the Baroque style took over, and it was sort of reacting to High Renaissance art, which was all about idealised beauty and proportion and balance—sort of like how the architecture is all about balance.” We walk into another room, and he points up at the ceiling to a huge painting of a woman holding a child, surrounded by cherubs. “But Mannerist art is quite stylised in comparison. It’s all about unnatural elegance. Like… limbs will often be out of proportion, and it’s less about appearing natural as it is about ideal but unrealistic beauty.”

“Huh,” I say. “So when I got scolded for drawing out of proportion in the third grade, I was actually adopting a Renaissance style.”

“Exactly,” Peeta chuckles. “Though a lot of Mannerist art is about the bible and mythology… I don’t suppose third-grade Katniss had that as her subject matter?”

“I think I was just trying to draw a person,” I shrug. “But feel free to tell me I had artistic capabilities beyond my teacher’s understanding.”

We ascend one of five spiral staircases. It’s a far-cry from the one in my apartment in Rome, which is skinny and steep and probably not up to code. This one is wide, stone steps with Romanesque pillars and huge windows and paintings covering every inch of wall and ceiling space.

“This must have been beautiful back in the day,” I say as we slowly make our way up and up. I imagine for a moment being dressed in the clothing of the Italian Renaissance and lifting my skirts to hurry down these steps. It truly is something from a fairy tale.

Next we’re a in a drawing room. It has five massive windows overlooking the town, the view shooting straight down the main street. The ceilings are just as magnificent, and the floors are covered in mosaicked images and patterns. It’s all so grand and overwhelming—it’s difficult to imagine someone living in such a place. Most homes these days, even those belonging to powerful and wealthy individuals such as those who once dwelled here, aren’t nearly as ornate. On the right side is the _Loggia of Hercules_ , a fountain with beautiful stucco moulding and carvings that reach the ceiling, depicting a scene of the town itself, trees framing the image. A huge font-like fountain made of pale stone sits at the base, a cherub overlooking.

Peeta spends a good ten minutes just standing in front of it, head tilted as he takes it all in. I smile at the sight. I’ve always enjoyed watching people marvel at things. It’s something I’ve missed while travelling solo for so long.

Finally we move out to the gardens, crossing another drawbridge into what feels almost like a maze. All the greenery is carefully manicured, reminding me of Versailles, with white-barked trees scattered here and there. Statues of saints and biblical figures stand on low plinths all about, gazing with their stony eyes as we walk along shady gravel paths.

“I think I like gardens more than houses,” I admit. We’ve circled back, making our way towards the house again. “I just like the outside better.”

“This is pretty,” Peeta says. “But that art… it wins me over every time.”

We follow the signs to the exit, and find ourselves back on the street. It’s the early evening, now, and I’m getting hungry, but I’m more than happy to wait while Peeta snaps a quick photo of the villa on his phone.

“I try not to take too many pictures,” he says, squinting at his screen in a battle against the bright light of the setting sun. “But I want to draw this.”

“I don’t mind waiting if you want to sketch,” I say.

“I wish I could, but I couldn’t fit a sketchpad in my backpack,” Peeta says, and I think he’s more regretful than he means to convey. He shrugs, looking back at the house. “I’ll remember it enough. There’s plenty of time to draw later.”

We begin to walk back down the hill at a slow, meandering pace.

“You know I liked it, but what did you think?” Peeta asks after a moment. He’s put his sunglasses back on, and the unbuttoned neckline of his shirt seems to have gotten lower at some point. “Was the villa worth the visit?”

“Yes,” I say, pleased. It’s easy to forget that there are quieter, cheaper, and just as beautiful buildings in small towns and villages all across Italy. It’s not just Rome, or Naples, or Venice. “I’m glad I didn’t drag you out here for nothing.”

“Even if it was disappointing—which it wasn’t—I’m not going to say no to seeing more of Italy,” he replies, and it doesn’t feel at all placating, like he’s trying to reassure me he’s not upset or annoyed. Not that I thought he would be—I’m the one getting him back to Rome, after all. He just seems genuinely happy. I might have only known him for a few hours, but I find myself inexplicably drawn to him. This stranger who nearly shares a hometown, a stranger who I decided on a whim to invite along with me. A stranger who has so far been pleasant company. What are the odds that he’d know about art just as we went to a villa filled with the stuff? That he’d be from Panem? That either of us would be here at all?

“And if we’re going to the lake tomorrow—” he continues, pulling me out of my head.

“Lake Vico,” I clarify.

“Yes—if we’re going tomorrow before heading back for Rome, I’ll find a scrap of paper somewhere and draw the lake.”

“Draw it for me,” I say, only half-joking. I really would like a sketch from someone.

“I’ll do my best,” he says, and I nod, smiling.

We consult TripAdvisor to find a good place to grab dinner, and then walk down one street, up some steps, and up another street until we reach a little restaurant that looks promising. It’s later in the afternoon, and although the sun won’t be setting for another few hours there’s a nice semi-dusk feeling in the air, the town slowly emptying.

The restaurant seating spills out onto a pedestrianised street so we find a table and settle down. We first order some drinks—local wine because the waiter tells us it’s a must—and then, since they don’t start serving food until six, we decide to just snack on bread and drink our wine and relax in the sun. We talk about our day, and then about our own travels. I describe Naples and Pompeii, the coastlines I’ve driven up, hiked along, or slid past on countless trains. I describe the south of France, the mountains of Spain, and endless other locations across Europe.

“So you’ve been travelling for a while, then?” Peeta asks, leaning back in his seat. He’s lit from behind in the sunlight, making his blond hair glow like a halo.

“Two years, give or take.”

“Sounds like you’re gonna find it hard to stop.”

I shrug. “So long as I can afford it, I’ll keep going.”

“Nothing calling you back home?”

“No,” I say, thinking of my parents, Prim, everything that was and now no longer is. “Nothing to go back to.”

Peeta nods. Maybe he understands. I know so little about him, and he me, an electrifying realisation. There really isn’t enough time for us to discuss everything, but I find myself sensing that if he did ask about why I’m really travelling so much, I would probably answer. Something about him is so welcoming. I don’t feel like he’d hold anything against me, judge me for anything. Maybe it’s just because I know that after Rome we won’t see each other again which makes me feel this way, but I suppose reasons don’t matter either.

“What about you?” I ask. “You’ve been travelling long?”

“Not really. I’m still getting into the swing of things.”

“What’s the favourite place you’ve been so far?”

“Bucharest was fun.”

I nod, considering.

“I had a great time in Berlin last year. Oktoberfest.”

Peeta grins. “Did you wear lederhosen?”

“Like a champ,” I joke, and he laughs.

We keep chatting and I’m surprised at how quickly six p.m. arrives. A waiter appears to take our orders. When the pasta arrives, along with some more wine, we eat and talk and Peeta goes bright red when he gets sauce on his shirt.

And so the evening passes. We talk about everything and anything. About travelling, about Italy, about Europe. We talk about food and music, each sharing our most-listened to travel tracks. We discuss books, Peeta admitting that his dyslexia makes reading an ordeal so he prefers pictures instead, and we discuss learning other languages. It’s the easiest conversation I’ve had in a long time, flowing effortlessly from one topic to another, never faltering, never demanding me to bring up something witty or interesting to say. We ask each other honest questions and give honest answers and it feels freeing. It feels like returning to an old friend.

As the next few hours pass, I find myself admiring Peeta more and more. When it’s dark enough, the string lights strewn across the street light up, casting a yellow glow over us all, and the sight of him glancing up when the bulbs flicker on makes my chest twinge. He’s handsome. I know that—I knew that from the moment I saw him—but sat here opposite him, our knees almost knocking, ankles and feet brushing under the tiny table, toasting to random things, debating and laughing and listening intently… it makes me feel an affection I never thought I’d have towards a stranger.

“I guess we’re not strangers anymore,” he says at one point, pouring the rest of the wine into our glasses. “I mean, I’ve told you about peeing myself in the eighth grade, so I’m an open book now.”

I clink my glass against his and laugh. “I’ll be sure to remember that bit of info so that in fifty years I can just reminisce about the pant-wetter I met in Italy.”

Peeta groans. “Alright,” he says. “So long as you tell me something embarrassing.”

I think for a moment. “When I was seventeen I walked into a post in front of the entire school and fell over, flashing my underwear to everyone and getting a nose bleed.”

Peeta purses his lips, eyes sparkling with barely-supressed laughter. “That’s really bad,” he says, cringing, and then we laugh again.

“To embarrassing ourselves,” I toast.

“I’ll drink to that,” he replies, and we do.

After too much wine and pasta, we pay, splitting the bill, and walk slowly, a little drunkenly, through the town. There’s a man playing the accordion on the steps of an inn, and some older couples dancing.

“Come on,” Peeta says, grabbing my hand. I protest at first, but his touch is light and easy and I’m on the right side of drunk so that I don’t feel overwhelmed or self-conscious. We dance with poor timing, made worse by Peeta’s lack of rhythm, and it doesn’t take long for us to dissolve into laughter, doing jaunty twirls across the cobbles. When I’m breathless, we applaud the accordionist and walk on.

“I can’t believe I’m doing any of this,” I say as we walk up the hill.

“What do you mean?”

“Inviting a stranger to drive around with me, going to dinner, god, _dancing in the street_. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

Peeta blinks at me, eyes dark in the dim light. “I’ve been told I have that affect. I’m good at making friends.”

“Is that what we are?” I boldly ask, clambering onto a wall. He grabs my hand in case I slip and fall, and I look down at him.

“Sure,” he says. His other hand goes to my hip when I sway slightly.

“Friends?” I clarify. His grip tightens just a little. It’s like an electric current.

“I’d hope so,” he says quietly. I smile at him, nod. Good.

We walk to the Fiat to grab our things and make it back to the hotel in one piece, and up to my room. I’m ready to shower and flop into bed, coming slowly down from my high, so I go straight for my bag and grab my shower things, plugging my phone in to recharge.

“Katniss,” Peeta says.

“Yeah?” I say.

“There’s only one bed.”

“Of course there’s only one bed,” I reply. In my head, I know I’m playing dumb. Of course there would only be one bed. I was alone until just a few hours ago. But I could have told him that. Maybe he doesn’t want to share a bed with me?

He stands there, looking mildly concerned. My stomach drops.

“Is that okay?” I ask. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s alright,” he reassures me. “I don’t mind. I can sleep on the floor—”

“Just share the bed, Peeta.”

He clears his throat. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” I say. It’s the truth. “Are you?” I ask.

“No,” he says. I nod.

“It’s only one night. I shouldn’t have assumed you’d be okay with it, I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” he murmurs. “It’s alright. Just wanted to be sure.”

“I’m just going to go and shower,” I say. He nods. I duck into the bathroom.

I lock the door behind me, set my things down, and eye myself in the mirror. God, I’m an idiot. I should have tried to change the booking, gotten two singles at the very least. Or warned him. Not assumed. _I_ don’t feel awkward about it, though perhaps I should. Peeta has seemed easy-going so far but walking around in public with someone you’ve just met is much different to sharing a bed.

“Damnit,” I say, leaning against the sink.

I shower, towel off, and duck back into the main room. Peeta has opened the window to let in the cool night air, and is sat on the edge of the mattress, texting.

“Hey,” I say. “I am genuinely sorry about the bed. I don’t know why I didn’t say something.”

“It’s alright,” he says. “I should have realised it was going to be a room for one person.”

“Technically it’s for two.”

“A different kind of duo, though.”

“Yeah.”

He stands up. “It’s okay,” he says. “I promise not to drool on you or anything, if you promise the same.”

“Scouts honour,” I say. He smiles at me, shaking his head.

“I’m blaming you for the wine,” he says. “And for the carbs. I’m going to get fat and slovenly.”

“I doubt that,” I say before I can stop myself. “You look like you have a fast metabolism,” I amend, as if that makes it better. Thankfully Peeta just laughs, grabs his stuff, and vanishes into the bathroom. I smack myself on the forehead, slurp down some water, and turn on the TV. I put on some random channel and send out a few texts of my own, updating friends on where I am.

**Me:** _currently in my hotel, living it up_

**Me:** _made a friend as well—he’s from Panem!_

**Gale:** _you know him?_

**Me:** _nope. Merchantville. Never met_

**Madge:** _back to Rome tomorrow? Send us pictures of all these places!!_

**Me:** _yep, giving my new friend a ride back._

**Johanna:** _brainless, my god… you’re driving with a strange man across Italy???_

**Gale:** _jesus Christ. Are you for real?_

**Me:** _it’s like an hour’s drive tops_

**Johanna:** _more than enough time to gut and bury someone_

**Gale:** _there’s something wrong with you mason._

**Madge:** _jo please, don’t put that image in my head_

**Me:** _I’m not going to get killed. He’s nice._

**Me:** _And I’ll send you pictures when I’m back at the apartment madge xx_

**Me:** _and I’ll be okay, gale. I’ll update you so you know I’m fine :)_

In our separate chat, Johanna pops up.

**Jo:** _so you have a friend, huh?? He cute? Must be something special for you to offer him a ride_

**Me:** _I’m being NICE._

**Jo:** _just a car ride, right?_

**Me:** _stop_

**Jo:** _he staying with you tonight? Having a torrid affair in Italy doesn’t sound like you but well done nevertheless brainless #proud_

The bathroom door opens. Peeta steps out with a towel around his waist.

“Sorry,” he says, grabbing something from his bag. I say nothing, he goes back into the bathroom a moment later. For approximately thirty seconds I wonder if I just blacked out. I’ll ever forget the sight of his broad chest and back and his arms, _god_.

**Me:** _you’re gross._

**Jo:** _That’s not a no!!!!!_

I put away my phone, because that’s not a trap I want to fall into right now. I yawn, tired from an unexpectedly busy day filled with talking and socialising, even just with one person. Peeta comes back in, this time wearing a shirt and sweats, and bumbles around for a minute. One of his socks has a hole in it, making his big toe stick out. I stare at it for a moment and then return my gaze to the TV, unable to care about how I look. I’m the slovenly one here.

“See, I wish I understood another language just to appreciate international television,” Peeta says. I can tell he’s hesitating about getting into the bed, which makes me feel bad about my lack of judgement all over again.

“It’s never too late to learn,” I say.

“Of course you’d say that. Isn’t there like the plasticity of your brain and stuff that makes learning new languages hard?”

“That sounds like an excuse.”

He pulls back the covers and gets in. I’m glad, shifting over to give him plenty of space. My heart is pounding, but it’s not from fear or apprehension. I’ve slept alone for 99% of the nights I’ve spent abroad, and it’s just a rush to have a person in the same bed. I desperately don’t want Peeta to feel uncomfortable now, so I shuffle further under the covers and yawn again.

“How’d you learn Italian?” he asks after a minute or two, as I watch some random show and Peeta furrows his brow at it.

“My dad was Italian,” I explain. “He taught me and my sister, spoke it at home all the time.”

“Lucky.”

“What language do you wish you could learn?”

“Mandarin would be cool. Or any of the Romance languages.”

“You should give it a go. Spend some of your time sat on buses and trains learning something new.”

He sighs. “I guess.”

“I’ll do my best to teach you Italian on the drive tomorrow.”

“An hour-long crash course?”

“Don’t be ungrateful.”

He laughs and scoffs at the same time. “You’d only teach me to tell people I’m stupid or something.”

“I would never.”

He rolls his eyes, punches his pillow. Lays back and stares at the ceiling.

“This bed is really comfy,” he says, and he’s right.

We sit for another half an hour, commenting about Italian television, and then turn it and the lights off, settling in for the night. We exchange our _goodnights_ and then it’s just the sound of our respective breathing, the tick of a clock, and my pounding heart.

I know we fall asleep with some distance between us, but at some point, I think around three am, I wake up with a deadweight on my waist. Confused, I feel down to see what it is, and find a hand splayed over my side, joined to an arm belonging to Peeta, who is dead to the world, face mushed into his pillow. I’m too tired to do anything about it, so I just fall back asleep.

And then I wake again because morning sunlight is streaming through the window, and my phone is buzzing, and I realise I’m curled into Peeta’s side. I freeze, trying to ascertain if he’s awake, and then look up, and am met with a pair of bright blue eyes.

“Hey,” he says sleepily, voice gruff, which doesn’t help things. “Sorry.”

We detach ourselves. I sit up, turn off my phone. I think I just had the best night’s sleep for a long time. I can still feel Peeta beside me, feel the ghost of his arm thrown easily over my waist in the dead of the night.

“It’s okay,” I say quietly. The room is quiet, the street outside silent but for chirping birds and the occasional car or bike bell. “How’d you sleep?”

He rubs his eyes. “Really well, actually.”

I smile to myself. “Good,” I say. “Me too.”

Neither of us mention it as we get dressed and pack our things and check out, before finding breakfast and coffee for me, tea for him. There’s a few semi-awkward glances at each other, but it’s not a bad awkward. I can’t help but wonder if he woke up in the middle of the night as well.

After breakfast, we leave Caprarola. Peeta drives us to Ronciglione, where we stop to pick up food and walk around the old medieval quarters, and then we continue on to Lake Vico, winding through fields and into the dense beech woodland that surrounds the crater lake. Lago di Vico sits within the Cimini Hills, all volcanic and much of it reserved for wildlife. We catch our first glimpse of the water in between the trees and keep going, passing a rustic little church and a cluster of houses. Peeta is a cautious driver, which he attributes to not being accustomed to tiny Italian cars on tiny Italian roads, but when I point out that the roads aren’t tiny, and that the Fiat can handle some abuse, and he picks up speed a little.

We keep going for almost half an hour, looking for a good place to stop. Lots of the lake edge is either inaccessible or already busy with visitors. People splash and swim in the water or recline on little sandy alcoves. Some walk and cycle along the paths and trails that curve around the lake.

I pull up the Wikipedia page for Lake Vico, and begin reeling off facts as Peeta drives, hunched forward over the wheel like he’s afraid he’s going to miss an oncoming vehicle or pedestrian, even though the roads are near-empty, even on a sunny day like this.

“Lake Vico is one of the highest major Italian lakes, with an altitude of 510 meters,” I read out. “According to legend, it was created by Hercules.”

“I didn’t know Hercules created lakes,” Peeta muses, turning off to follow the route which hugs the shoreline.

“It has extensive beech forest, the most southerly in Europe, and the beech survives because of the altitude. It’s also mostly a nature reserve. The Vico Natural preserve includes the great crested grebe—that’s a bird---as well as some toads, fish, badgers, jays, owls, foxes, frogs, and even wild cats!”

“It reminds me of Panem, actually,” Peeta says. “I miss the forests there.”

“You don’t strike me as an outdoorsy type.”

“I miss driving _through_ the forests,” he amends, and I snort.

“Seamtown was practically _in_ the forest,” I say, putting my phone in my lap and concentrating on the woodland, the sunlight filtering down, the green canopy. While the beech is different to the oak and spruce of home, it’s a forest nevertheless, and it’s comforting to have leaves overhead.

We pull over eventually, finding a quiet spot where we’re only a short distance away from the water’s edge. We open the doors and stretch our legs by going to the water and gazing out. It’s a huge lake, and it’s hard to imagine a volcano once lying here. Now it’s lush and green and fertile land, populated by isolated houses and villages.

“Looks cold,” Peeta says, standing a foot away from the damp sand. I get closer and dip my hand in. It is cold, and I make sure he knows as well by whipping around and flicking water at him. He laughs, staggering backwards. “I’m going to throw you in,” he says, and I roll my eyes, walking back towards the car.

“You couldn’t,” I say, and he sizes me up, making me walk faster up the bank.

“You look light as a feather, Katniss,” he replies. “I could easily throw you over my shoulder.”

The thought of it makes my stomach swoop, and I’m glad to be facing away from him so I can school my face into a more neutral expression.

“I think throwing someone over your shoulder is a lot harder than you think,” I say instead, and he catches up to walk alongside me to the car.

“I was a state champion wrestler,” he informs me, and I blink at him. He shrugs like it’s nothing. “Two years in a row, following my brothers,” he continues. We reach the car and stop. He looks at me. “So, yeah, pretty sure I could throw you around if I wanted to.”

I blank on what to say for a moment, so round the car and get in.

“I’m pretty fast,” I eventually say, my voice sounding weird even to my own ears. “You’d have to catch me first.”

We sit down, grab our respective lunches, and I kick my socked feet up on the dashboard and enjoy the scenery. I try not to think about Peeta being strong enough to pick me up with ease, about how broad his shoulders are, about how thick his biceps are especially in today’s short-sleeved shirt, and then my brain is supplying me with a hefty reel of images, ranging from Peeta stepping out from the shower with a towel around his hips to Peeta’s arm around me in bed, and then, in a flash of what—a wishful thought? A dream?—I see Peeta above me, pinning me down, and heat immediately surges through me.

I stuff my face with a sandwich and refuse to look at the man in question. We’ve been sat here quite pleasantly, eating our food, looking at the trees and the clouds and the damn butterflies, and I’m sure he’s not thinking about _that_ , and I shouldn’t be either. We’re strangers, still. Friendly strangers, sure, and strangers who drank a little too much last night and talked about life and love and who then danced in the streets and then accidentally slept in each other’s arms—but strangers. He hasn’t made any sign that he thinks of me like that.

I clear my throat and glance at him. He’s brushing crumbs off his shirt, and somehow that makes me feel even worse. Because he’s cute, damn it. Sure, he’s devastatingly good looking, but cute, too, a deadly combination.

We finish eating, and I’m desperate to get out of the car, so I go to the waterfront and toe off my shoes and socks and roll up my loose pants around my thighs and wade in. It’s still cold, the lake bed sandy and smooth. Peeta appears and takes off his shoes and socks too, but stays in the shallowest of the shallows.

“It’s nice,” I say. “Come in deeper.”

“I better not,” Peeta grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not a good swimmer.”

“I don’t mean get in and swim,” I call back. I look at my toes sinking into the sand through the clear water.

“I’m also… not that keen on water, if I’m honest,” Peeta adds. He sounds embarrassed.

“Can’t you swim?” I ask. He pulls a face. “Peeta!” I say in mock horror. “How come?”

“My parents never taught me or took me for lessons, and there wasn’t a pool nearby.”

I think of my parents, who taught me to swim when I was a baby, really, until I was like an otter in the rivers and lakes near our home. It wasn’t summer without spending days on end diving and floating and boating on homemade rafts.

“Fair enough,” I call back. Peeta puts his hands on his hips and squints at the sun. “I’ll have to teach you at some point,” I tell him, before being smacked in the face with the image of Peeta floating shirtless beside me, of having to reassure him with a hand on the small of his back or on his stomach, helping him remain buoyant.

And then, to make things worse, Peeta says, “Sure. But only if you let me give you some wrestling tips.”

I give a laugh which sounds weak even to my ears. “Sounds good!” I tell him, and then I turn away to face the rest of the lake and grimace. Hercules strike me down.

Peeta goes and procures some paper and a pen at some point, returning to sit on the sand and draw. I wade to and fro in the lake, looking at the sand, the little rocks and pebbles. I spy some people kayaking or canoeing in the distance, and for a moment wish for my father to be here, just so he could see this. He was as much a water lover as myself.

When I come back ashore, Peeta brushes sand off his shorts and we walk back to the car.

“How’d the sketch turn out?” I ask as we pull our socks and shoes back on and ready ourselves to drive on.

“Good,” Peeta says, smiling. He looks relaxed. “I haven’t done anything for a long time, so I was a bit rusty. But it was nice.”

“Can I see?” I ask, and he only hesitates for a moment before handing me the paper. He apologises for the biro ink, the poor-quality paper sourced from the hotel receptionist, and for the fact that he had to lean on his map to have a sturdy surface to draw on, but none of that matters. For a small sketch, he’s captured a remarkable scene with a lot of detail. “Wow,” I breathe, taking it in. It’s of the lake, wrought in horizontal lines across the page, and the tree-covered hills, which he’s rendered with significant depth despite the single colour of the biro. Trees and shrubs frame the scene, and, beyond the strip of sand and initial shallows, is a figure. Me, trousers rolled, one hand dipping into the water. It’s simple, a collection of loose, confident lines, but undoubtedly me.

“Peeta,” I say, looking at him. He looks nervous. “This is really good.”

“Really?” he asks.

“Yes!” I affirm. “I’m amazed, seriously. I didn’t know you could do anything with biro. This is really beautiful.”

“Thanks,” he says, sounding pleased, mouth pursing into a smile. “You can keep it—if you want. Only if you want.”

“I’d love to,” I say, running my finger over it to feel the depressions made by the nib of the pen. “Sign and date it first, will you, so I can remember?”

He does so, marking his name in the bottom left corner, along with the date and _Lake Vico_ in his boxy script, and then I take it and slip it carefully into my guidebook, marking the page.

“Thank you,” I say, and he beams. I start the engine. “What a nice way to end this little trip of ours.”

And so we drive on. It’s just over an hour to Rome, but we stop and start at some places to take in the view or get gas, adding another thirty minutes or so. We chat and laugh and reminisce about our own travels, and as we get closer and closer to the city itself, I find myself wanting to fit in more into the conversation, into my answers to his questions and my questions to him. Time is running out, and I want to hear more from him. Ask him more. Know him more.

I take a marginally longer route just to gain another fifteen minutes. And in those fifteen minutes, I realise I’m being stupid. I promised Peeta to take him to Rome so he could meet his friends. No matter how much I’ve enjoyed his company, he’s not here to spend time with me. He’s doing his own thing. It was nice while it lasted, and I have to accept that.

So eventually I come to a stop, pulling up in a quiet city street where Peeta can easily walk to wherever he’s meant to be going. I kill the engine and we both get out so he can grab his rucksack. We spend five minutes making sure he’s got all his stuff, that nothing has rolled under the seats or wedged itself into the glovebox.

“I’m not glad to have this back on my shoulders,” he says, grimacing at the weight of the backpack.

“Hopefully it won’t be for long,” I reply, offering him a sympathetic smile. “Watch out for pickpockets.”

“I’ll just knock them out with it,” he says, thumbs hooked in the straps of the bag as he spins slightly. I can imagine it being enough to maim someone, and definitely knock out a small child.

A beat passes where we sort of awkwardly look at each other, the most awkward moment between us in the last thirty six hours. And then Peeta sort of sighs and smiles at me.

“Thank you so much for everything, Katniss. For offering me a ride—that was so kind of you. And for giving me a good day and a half I would have otherwise missed out on. I’m really glad I met you.”

I smile back at him. It feels silly, but I actually feel like I’m getting a bit emotional. I force it down. My friends would laugh to see me like this. I can hear Gale droning on now: _I can’t believe you got upset about saying goodbye to a potential murderer._

“I’m glad you interrupted my peaceful afternoon,” I say, and Peeta laughs. It’s a rich, happy sound. His eyes gleam, so blue. “Thank you for giving me company. I’m not sure it was a wise idea in retrospect to offer to drive a strange man from one small town to a big city… or share a car and a hotel room with him… but I’m pleased to find that you’re not a creep.”

He half-grimaces, half smirks. “That’s a stellar review of my personality, thank you.”

“Well, have a lovely time in Rome,” I say. “I hope the rest of your travels are safe and fun and that you get what you want out of them. If you get a chance to go to Sicily, I highly recommend it.”

Peeta fishes into his pocket, pulls out his phone. “Take my number,” he says, voice rough in his throat. “I’ll update you if I manage to go.”

I feel my heart skip a beat. “Alright,” I say, grabbing my own phone. He reads his number out. I input it under **Peeta (Sant’Oreste)** which feels slightly unnecessary, because when am I ever going to meet another _Peeta_? I send him a smiley face, which he replies with in turn.

“Cool,” he says.

“Cool,” I say. I hate that I’m stalling.

“I’m honestly a bit sad to see us going our separate ways,” Peeta admits, like it’s the easiest thing to say in the world. “Is it alright if I hug you?” he asks. “I don’t want to just, like, walk away. And a handshake feels too formal.”

“Sure,” I say, and then he steps into my personal space and hugs me. He’s not much taller than me, but he still feels like a giant, a blond and golden giant who smells like vanilla and cedar wood. I drop my nose against his shoulder before I can think better, eyes closing. It’s a good hug. Just like that handshake we shared. Just like how he held me in that hotel room. It’s firm but not tight. It feels safe and warm and comfortable. His hands on my back burn me but I never want it to end.

Then it does. We pull apart. Peeta gives me a winning smile.

“Maybe we’ll bump into each other one day in Panem,” he says.

“I’ll show you around the Seam,” I promise.

“I’d like that.”

“It’s not as good as Rome.”

He shrugs, already taking a small step back. “I don’t know. I think good company can make any place special.”

And then he says goodbye and I say goodbye and he’s walking backwards for a few steps before turning and walking away. I stand there, watching him go, feeling like part of my chest is being pulled along with him, stretching out of shape. He looks over his shoulder and waves when he’s halfway down the street, and I wave back. I wait until he vanishes around the bend before sighing.

“Shit,” I say to myself, glancing back at the empty space he just inhabited, and then I get back into the Fiat, start the engine, and drive off.

It’s not until I’m back in my apartment, unpacking my little duffel bag, that I find a stray sock hidden away among my own laundry. I smile. It’s the one that Peeta’s toe stuck out of, and now he doesn’t have it at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> saturnblushes @ tumblr and pinterest. gimme a lil' review if you enjoyed :)
> 
> sources:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Farnese  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerism  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vico


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your kind reviews! :)

**{2} Rome I**

With Peeta gone, I realise how much I enjoyed his company. It seems odd and hyperbolic to say but it’s true. We spent less than forty hours together, and yet I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. I danced on cobbles. I reminisced about Panem, something I haven’t done or wanted to do for a long time. I sat back and took in the Italian countryside with someone by my side to point out clouds that looked like dragons.

I felt comfortable with Peeta. I didn’t feel unsafe, a trouble for any woman travelling solo. At no point did I feel like I had to double-check what I was doing and where I was going. I felt safe enough that I didn’t even need to _think_ about being safe. I was comfortable to spontaneously share a bed with him, just hours after meeting.

The morning after saying goodbye to him, I wake around nine to the sound of distant city bells. I rise, pressing my feet into the cool tiles on my bedroom floor, and then go to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I rummage for my reusable coffee cup and grab my keys and wallet and dart down the narrow spiral staircase of the building and into the street. The air is still cool, not yet heated by the sun, but tourists are already out and about. I duck into the nearby _caffetteria_ and order my morning fix and a pastry, and squirrel away back to my apartment to sit on the balcony and eat and read my book and gaze out at the distant rooftops.

It feels good to be back. It felt just as good to be in Sant’Oreste and Caprarola. I can’t imagine that it would have been anywhere as pleasant without my companion, but that’s not something to dwell on. Nor is the fact that I can imagine looking over and seeing him sat on the balcony with me, with the same sleep-mussed hair and drowsy eyes and soft look about him that I witnessed in that hotel room; he’d drink his tea and probably spread his map across the entire table, knocking over my bowl of fresh fruit; he’d plan the day by cartographic reference and smile and laugh and continue to be a warm presence at my side, a presence I’d be sore to loose, and sore to miss.

We might have told each other that one day we’d tour Panem, hinted that surely we’d bump into each other once more, but I am under no illusions that anything of the sort could actually ever happen. If we could both live over two decades of our lives an hour away from one another and never meet, no matter how briefly, why should it be any different now that we have? Why should this be any more than a faint, fading memory?

And, I think with a pang in my chest, what guarantee is there that the two of us would continue to be anything like we were for those scant hours? It’s possible that the last day and a half were an anomaly. Maybe back home under Panem skies we’d be stilted and my memories of Sant’Oreste and Caprarola and Lake Vico and the drive back to Rome… maybe they’d be forever tainted by trying to cling onto what _was_ for only a brief moment.

So I get on with my day. And the next. And the next. I go to favoured cafes and restaurants. I set no alarms and wake instead by the sunlight streaming in. I tour the city, visiting a mix of tourist hotspots and lesser-known gems. I have as good a time as I had with Peeta, as I had before I ever met him.

Soon enough, I facetime with Gale and Madge, who live in Switzerland.

“ _You are coming to stay aren’t you?_ ” Madge asks. “ _We’ve got plenty of room, Katniss, and it is like you’re avoiding coming to Switzerland to see us_.”

She says it jokingly, but she has a point. I’ve been steadfastly avoiding Switzerland—not because I don’t want to see my friends or the beautiful country—but because I feel like I need to be emotionally prepared to see them and to have things to tell them about that aren’t just about grief. They’re people from home, and right now, _home_ for me means a lot of pain.

But now I _have_ technically seen someone from home on my travels. It’s not the same, obviously. Peeta is a stranger from home. Gale is my childhood friend. I met Madge in college and she married Gale. And yet Peeta is someone from home, in a distant way. No one I’ve met on my travels who is American knows much about the smallest state. Peeta knows what the forests and mountains look like, even if we never met until we both left the place.

“Of course I’m coming to stay,” I tell Madge. “I will. I promise. I’m going to work my way north once my lease runs out here in Rome.”

“ _So we should wait another eight months_?” Gale asks, only half his face visible since Madge is holding the phone. He cranes his neck to look at me, thick eyebrows bunching together.

I give a sarcastic laugh. “I can’t help that I’ve been doing a lot of travelling,” I say. “And it won’t be that long, I promise. I’m going north. I’ll tell you when I’m going to cross the border.”

“ _Good_ ,” Madge beams. “ _There’ll be a room ready and waiting for you_.”

I smile back at her. It’s been over a year since I saw either of them. At the beginning I had more of a reason to keep my distance and give myself some time alone, but it’s enough now. I can’t neglect them, not after avoiding Switzerland like it’s the plague.

“I can’t wait,” I reply, and then our conversation switches to Sant’Oreste and Caprarola and my plans for the remainder of my stay in Rome. I’m honest with them—I’m just going to be relaxing, like I have been for the past few months. As for mentioning the last few days and who I met—I just don’t. I don’t really know why, other than I’d most likely get scolded for inviting a stranger along like that, but also because Madge would undoubtedly gush about _romance_ and _fate_ and Gale would glower and ask me if I’d been hit over the head, because I, Katniss Everdeen, famously do not do That Kind of Thing.

It’s not like I slept with him. Or kissed him. Thinking is not the same as doing.

Undoubtedly the moment will arrive when I’ll talk about my little adventure, and it’ll be nostalgic for me, remembering that short time with a nice guy from my home state, describing the towns and mountains and the villa and the lake and the driving and how it was just so _nice_. And to everyone else, it’ll just be that crazy tale of when I nearly got murdered, and I’ll have to deny that I ever got even a whiff of that kind of vibe from Peeta.

“Shit,” I’d say in self-defense. “ _He_ brought up Ted Bundy, not me!”

Later that day, in the early evening, I step out of my apartment, intending to stretch my legs and then get some ingredients to bring back and cook with. I’m in a good mood, having talked to my friends, finished my book and started a new one, and eaten fresh mango and strawberries from a stall down the street. A good day all in all, and the sun and the beautiful city only make me smile more. I walk happily along, thinking about going back to the apartment and its tiny kitchen to fry onions and garlic in the pan and play some good music and then eat whatever I cook on my balcony as the sun sets.

I’m peering up at the wrought iron balcony of an apartment above a bakery, admiring the flowers pouring over the edges and considering how blissful it must be to smell freshly-baked bread each morning, when someone calls my name.

“Katniss?”

I look up, recognising that voice. American. Male. The one I’ve been stupidly replaying in my mind for three days. It can’t be—

“Katniss!” Its Peeta himself, stood further along the street. Peeta. In the flesh. Of course.

Something in my chest pangs. I smile like an idiot and am pleased to see that he’s doing the same. We walk closer and closer, and the other pedestrians fade into the background.

“Peeta, hi,” I exhale. We’re hugging without thinking about it, and _god_ it’s only been a handful of days, but I’ve missed him. I’ve missed him. Admitting it is a weight off my chest.

“Long time no see, stranger,” he says when we pull apart. His fingers linger for a moment on my elbow, and I fight the urge to clasp my hand over his forearm. “What’s it been, three days?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “I can’t get rid of you.”

He lifts his hands. “Hey, you shouldn’t have dropped me off in your city,” he says. “Should’ve let me in the countryside like you promised.”

“That was a threat, not a promise,” I say. It’s so easy to be talking to him again. I forget any fears I had of our connection being a one-time thing. It’s like stepping into a pair of old shoes, comfortable and easy and _good_.

“So, what are you up to on this fine evening?” he asks. He has a pair of sunglasses hooked into the open buttons of his shirt, and a pair of shorts with one of the front pockets bulging with a wallet and phone, and his trusty boots. His hair is suitably wavy in the heat.

“Nothing much,” I reply. “I was actually just going to have a quiet night in. I didn’t know you were in this part of the city.”

“I’m a bit further out. Took the metro in. I’m grabbing dinner with some friends.”

“Oh, nice. These the friends you spoke about?”

“Yeah,” he says. “They don’t actually live in Rome, but they’re leaving soon and we’re catching up as much as we can.” He checks his watch, furrows his brow. “Actually… how set in stone are your plans?”

I think briefly of the eggs in my fridge that I desperately wanted to use up. “Not at all,” I say. The eggs can wait until tomorrow, right?

Peeta clears his throat. “I don’t know if you’d like to join me and my friends? They’re absolutely lovely, and they wouldn’t mind at all.”

I’m more than a little surprised at his offer. I stammer through a few syllables before saying, “I really couldn’t impose.”

“You wouldn’t be imposing. Not at all,” Peeta says earnestly.

I hesitate. He gives me a beseeching look. “I’m on my way there right now,” he continues. “You said it yourself—your plans aren’t definite. Come with me. Meet my cool friends. Catch me up on the last few days.”

I laugh. “I haven’t got much to tell you.”

“Then I’ll tell you about my time in Rome,” he bargains. “Come on, Katniss, it’ll be fun. And you can’t say no now. What are the odds of us bumping into each other again?”

I relent. “Alright,” I say. “But I’ll have to go back to my apartment, grab a bag.”

“That’s fine with me,” Peeta says. “Let’s go.”

So we begin walking, he continuing on, me doubling back. What we talk about, I couldn’t tell you. All I think about, instead, is that _he’s here_. That I’m genuinely happy to be speaking to him again.

“This is me,” I say, stopping outside the door of my apartment building.

“I’ll wait down here, call ahead and let them know I’ll be a few minutes late.”

“I’m making you late?” I grimace, unlocking the door.

“You are now!” he retorts, bringing his phone to his ear and making a shooing motion. I roll my eyes and vanish into the cool, dim foyer.

As I clatter up the stairs, my heart pounds. I fling myself into my apartment, grab a little cross-body handbag to stow my phone, purse, a lip balm and hair tie, my keys, little bits and pieces. I secure all the windows and then catch a sight of myself in the mirror and cringe. My hair is flying about and I dressed for a quick trip to the store, not for dinner with Peeta and Peeta’s friends.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter to myself, yanking my bag off my shoulder and tossing it onto the bed. I pull open the chest of drawers in my room and pull out the first item that I know is clean. It’s a soft, worn blue dress with buttons on the front and a tie at the waist, simple, passed down from my mother. Not too fancy but it fits me like a glove.

“Why do I even care?” I ask myself as I heft it on, the fabric getting caught on my sandals. _Because you want to impress his friends and you want to impress him, even slightly._

I spritz myself with some perfume and leave my hair because wrangling it will likely only take more time and be more disastrous, and then I hurry back out of the apartment and down the steps. I haven’t been more than five minutes, and I’m out of breath.

“Hey,” Peeta says, standing upright from where he’s leaned back against the wall. He blinks at me. “You changed.”

“Yeah,” I say, pretending like I didn’t bang my elbow against the wall on the way down to the ground floor. “Need to make a good impression. I hope we’re not going anywhere posh.”

Peeta looks down at himself. “You think I’d dress like this if we were going to a five-star restaurant?”

“Backpacker chic?” I offer, and he shakes his head.

“You look beautiful,” he says as we begin walking.

“Thanks,” I murmur, embarrassed, even though, Damnit, I changed for a reason. “You look nice too.”

“There’s no need for flattery,” he counters. “And you’re more than welcome to dinner. I called and said I was bringing a friend and they’re excited to meet you.”

“A friend?” I ask, before barrelling on so I don’t have to think too much about that and he doesn’t have to explain. “Did you tell them anything about me?”

“Only that you threatened to kill me with your rental car.”

“Oh,” I breathe. “Just that.”

We keep walking and talking, and Peeta tells me a little about his friends.

“I met Annie years ago. She was an exchange student and I was mistaken that I could learn Italian in like, two weeks, but she took pity on me and we’ve been friends ever since. And her fiancé, Finnick—well, you’ll see why we’re friends. He’s the best. They both are.”

I wipe my hands on my thighs. No pressure, right? We are strangers, sort of. Or maybe not. Friends. But not friends like Peeta is with these two people. Not like I am with Gale or Madge. We are like situational friends, except the situation in question has morphed. I’m not unhappy about that, of course not, but still.

This low-level anxiety bubbles away, only kept at bay by Peeta’s chatter. We reach a boujie-looking restaurant and I realise its one I’ve passed a million times and considered visiting but never actually gone into. The outdoor seating is delightful, with string lights reminiscent of the place in Caprarola, except this one is busier and brighter.

“There they are,” Peeta says, leading the way, and I follow.

Annie and Finnick turn out to be a gorgeous Italian couple. Their accents are dreamy, and they’re both so beautiful it makes me suspicious. They both stand up to greet Peeta and then me, and I’m stunned at how effortlessly stylish they are, making me feel magnificently potato-like. But far from feel like they’re judging me, I can only feel a warm from the both of them that’s infectious.

“Ciao è così bello conoscerti,” I say, _hello, it’s so nice to meet you_ , and Annie beams.

“Ah, ah, tu parli Italiano? Qual è la scusa di Peeta?” she says, _you speak Italian? What’s Peeta’s excuse?_

“Hey,” Peeta interrupts. “Don’t talk about me!”

“It’s not our fault that the only language you speak is third-grade American English,” Annie shoots back, and I snort, both at her retort and Peeta’s open-mouthed expression of betrayal.

“I’m Annie,” she says. “And this is my fiancé, Finnick.”

I shake the hand of a tall, athletic, bronzed Adonis. It’s a cliché, sure, that all Italian men are beautiful—but damn. Finnick is just… a sculpture come to life for sure.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he says in a rich Italian accent. I swoon slightly. Anyone would.

“I feel pale, ugly, and uncultured,” Peeta says with a heavy sigh.

“Peeta, I didn’t know you had such beautiful friends,” I say in a conspiring tone, and Annie and Finnick laugh while Peeta glowers and sits down.

“I would look pretty cute if I wasn’t in a hostel,” he says, and Annie makes a sound of amused sympathy while Finnick opens the drinks menu and begins to intently study it. We order our beverages, and then we sit and chat.

Peeta was right. It’s clear as day why he’s friends with them. Annie is quiet but smart, all her input sharp and purposeful. Her auburn hair is wild in a way that would make me look like I’d been electrocuted if I attempted the same style, and her simple outfit of breezy culottes and a shirt with lightly heeled shoes is utterly effortless. Finnick is more dressed up, in tailored slacks and a shirt, which he has unbuttoned obscenely low and rolled up over his elbows. He’s a flirt, winking at me and making two suggestive comments in the space of ten minutes, but rather than glare at him in discomfort or disgust, I just feel a little flustered. From the expression on Annie and Peeta’s faces, this is just how he is.

A waiter comes back and we order our food, all in Italian except for Peeta who tacks on a begrudging _grazie_ on the end. Finnick pours more wine and raises his glass, prompting us all to do the same.

“To old friends and new,” he says, our glasses pinging off each other’s. I clink my glass against Peeta’s and he elbows me while I drink, almost making me spill wine down my front.

“Asshole,” I say, wiping my chin, and he just grins.

“So, Katniss, tell us where you’re from,” Annie eventually says, turning her wine glass slowly in her manicured fingers. Everything about her, from the way she holds the stem to her pronunciation of English is a study in elegance. I find myself straightening my back just by being around her.

“Actually Peeta and I are both from Panem,” I say, and Annie and Finnick’s eyes widen. “We’re from towns about an hour apart. Rival high schools.”

“But you never met?” Finnick asks.

“I think I would have remembered,” Peeta murmurs.

“And you met in Sant’Oreste?” Annie continues. I nod. “Wow—this is fate! You could not write this.”

“No,” I murmur. “I suppose it is kind of a crazy coincidence.”

“Peeta didn’t tell us much about you,” Finnick says, eyes gleaming. “Only that he’d met a beautiful American girl and that you saw art and ate pasta and then danced in the street in the moonlight.”

I look at Peeta, who looks like he’s swallowed a fly.

“You really said that?” I ask, going for jovial when really it makes me feel a little mushy inside.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s the truth, right?”

“Yeah,” I echo.

“What do you think about our Peeta?” Finnick asks.

“Well, when I first met him, he was trying to speak to me in Italian,” I begin, and Annie pulls a face. “But then we got talking, decided to go to Caprarola together. See Villa Farnese. And then we did get dinner together. And we did dance—I don’t remember the moonlight, though.”

“Embellishment,” Peeta shrugs.

“And then we drove back to Rome the next morning,” I say, my voice wobbling slightly over the last three words because _shit_ , _what does that sound like?_

“I didn’t know there were hostels in Caprarola,” Finnick says, his tone diplomatic but his mouth quirking into a smirk.

“There isn’t,” Peeta says pointedly. “Katniss kindly _offered_ to let me stay in the hotel room she’d booked.”

“Uh-huh,” Finnick says. I avert my gaze and spot an incoming waiter laden down with plates.

“Food!” I proclaim, and that’s enough to derail what I’m sure was going to be a series of awkward questions. Not that it should be. Our truthful answers would have described an innocent night. We shared a bed. So what?

The food is absently delicious. Finnick gets fish, Annie some kind of seaweed pasta, while I get a hearty lamb stew, and Peeta gets gnocchi. We eat and gush over the food, order another bottle of wine, and talk. We discuss the restaurant, the piazza, Rome, Italy in general.

“We’re often mostly in the south,” Finnick says, hands clasping Annie’s. “But we had to come and see Peeta.”

“And what good timing to meet you as well, Katniss,” Annie says.

“It really is,” I reply. “I’ve had a lot of good timing in the past week.”

I learn that Finnick was an Olympic swimmer who now coaches the children of wealthy families, and that Annie runs a non-profit, which, of course she does. They’re beautiful, intelligent, successful, and philanthropists, all without an attitude that makes me dislike them. They’re charming, unattainable and yet down to earth.

“That is because we are from humble beginnings,” Finnick explains when in a round-about way, I manage to tell them how normal they seem, even after Finnick shows me photos of their home, with its newly-renovated pool and vineyards, _plural_. “We worked hard for what we have and, if I’m honest, we deserve it also.”

I nod. Not that you’d think they had ever been normal or poor or had suffered, but I’ve never been one to assume about someone’s past just from looking at them.

“I respect that,” I say. “My father was a coal miner, we grew up dirt poor. But I still got to college, got my degree, and got to travel. So, not too bad in the end.”

I can feel Peeta looking at me. As much as we talked during our initial time together, we didn’t talk about family or our childhoods beyond recollections of brief, happy memories. He doesn’t know that my family is dead, that the only reason I can travel is because of insurance pay-outs. He doesn’t know that I’m not travelling purely for the pleasure of it. That I am running, if I’m honest with myself.

And he doesn’t need to know. Not right now, at least.

“To making the best of things,” Finnick says, toasting again.

It’s the first of many toasts. I find that the more he drinks, the more Finnick wants to toast things. He toasts the sunset, a scruffy little dog that walks past with its owner, and the desserts we order. Rich delicacies, chocolate and cream, fruit and custard, powdered sugar and fresh, buttery biscuit.

Conversation flows as freely as the wine. Sometimes I find myself talking to Annie, leaning forward, elbows on the table cloth to be able to hear her over the others around her. Other times it’s to Finnick, who gets my number and sends me two embarrassing pictures of Peeta with the message _for blackmail,_ accompanied by a shushing emoji.

As for Peeta himself, we don’t have a deep conversation between one another. Instead, we just butt into each other’s spiels, ask each other for clarification about Sant’Oreste or Caprarola, and smile at each other. Our elbows brush around the small table. His foot bumps against mine again and again. When his knee grazes mine, I press back without—I’m proud to say—faltering in my sentence.

We pay up but remain seated for a little while longer. Its great company all around and I can’t help but think that my planned quiet evening wouldn’t have been as fun.

“We cannot end our night here,” Finnick says with grandeur when we finally leave, standing in the half-empty piazza, the city around us a bustle of tourists and locals all going out for food and drink. “Katniss, are you the type to go to sleep at nine pm?”

“Not currently,” I tell him, ignoring the fact that the night previous, I was dozing off around eight, a pint of melting ice cream in hand.

“Good,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Would you like to go to a bar? Or perhaps—” he inhales, grasping Annie’s hand and kissing her knuckles. “ _Andiamo in discoteca,_ ” he says, and she gasps and grins.

“Katniss, my goodness, you must come to the club with us!”

I smile in bewilderment. “Okay,” I say. “I’d be happy to.” I look at Peeta. “How does that sound?”

“I’m hardly dressed for the club,” he laments.

“None of us are,” Annie reassures him.

“Peeta, _mio amico_ , I know you want to dance,” Finnick says, and then, winking at me. “Peeta _loves_ to dance.”

“He has two left feet,” I remark, making Finnick laugh and Peeta groan.

“That he does—but just because you are bad at something does not mean you cannot enjoy it!”

We begin to walk, Peeta and I following Annie and Finnick, who walk arm-in-arm. They’re so clearly, deeply in love with one another it makes my heart hurt.

“You don’t have to come,” Peeta says.

“You don’t want me to?” I ask.

“No, no, I do. I just—you don’t have to. If you don’t want to.”

“Afraid to let me see your moves?” I ask. His worried frown shifts into a sheepish smile.

“Maybe.”

“It’s alright,” I say. “I might not even remember it tomorrow morning.”

So we keep walking. I’m feeling buzzed but not sloppy, happy and a little tired but eager to join my new friends. I’ve been on a few nights out with absolute strangers, people I met an hour prior at a hostel or hotel. This is sure to be even more enjoyable. I haven’t been to any clubs in Rome, or any club, really, for a long time.

We reach the club and waltz inside. It’s in a gorgeous building and I’m sure in the daytime it looks like any other, but at night it’s all pulsing lights and booming music. Finnick and Peeta go and find the men’s room, while Annie and I queue for what feels like an age to use the women’s. We chat constantly; despite Annie’s quietness, she always has interesting things to say. Speaking in Italian makes it all the easier.

“Your pronunciation is really good,” she compliments.

“Thank you,” I say, genuinely pleased, as anyone would be to get praise from a native speaker.

We grab a cubicle each and then fend for ourselves at the sinks and then emerge refreshed and ready to grab a drink in a plastic cup and go and dance. Finnick and Peeta complain about how long we took, and then we go to the bar and use the two men as shields so we can get to the front and order. Finnick and Annie are completely at ease, the former pressed up against the latter like a suit of armour. Peeta is just behind me, but there’s space, which I’m half-appreciative of, and yet I’m half-wishing he’d close the gap. We woke up in each other’s arms, after all.

We grab our drinks and make our way onto the dancefloor. The club is busy but not heaving, so we have room to dance and not get constantly jostled by other sweaty people. The music is good, a mix of Italian favourites and international hits, old and new, and we dance our hearts out. It’s ridiculously fun—I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed just dancing with my friends.

At some point, though, I realise that I keep looking for Peeta. As we move through the crowds to get further into the middle, I look for him. While we dance, I find myself watching him and smiling. Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by new, lovely people. Perhaps it’s the wine. Perhaps it’s the heat. But I just want to keep looking at him.

I don’t know what song is playing, but somehow it’s perfect, slowing even as we dance, the lights rolling around and around in flashes of white and blue and red and green, illuminating everyone and everything for mere moments. And in those moments, I see Peeta. I see him pushing his sweaty hair back from his face. I see him moving his head from side to side as he dances, chin tilted back, eyes closed as he embraces the music. It makes me smile, seeing him dance with such abandon. It makes me want to dance as well, so I do, and his eyes snap open just as a burst of blue light hits him, making his eyes glow.

He laughs at me, with me, and I laugh too. I’m sweaty and drunk but I never want to stop dancing. Never want to break this.

He reaches for my hand and pulls me in and then spins me under his arm. I roll my eyes at the cheesy move but he’s grinning like an idiot. We clasp hands and do an embarrassing not-dance, and I find myself drifting closer and closer to him until we’re touching more often than not. It means that we’re effectively grinding on each other, something I’d never normally do, but it feels right, and with the music and the lights and the alcohol in my veins, I don’t feel awkward or pressured about it. It just feels nice. It feels nice to be touched like that, to turn around and face Peeta again and see his eyes blown dark, to feel his hands on my hips.

I think for a moment that we’re going to kiss when he leans in, but instead, he just says into my ear, _you want to get a breather outside?_ and my entire body zings at his lips brushing the shell of my ear. I nod, not letting go of his hand. He motions to Finnick and Annie that we’re heading out for some fresh air. I’d half-forgotten they were even there and stumble after Peeta, squeezing past people and off the dancefloor, past the bar, down the stairs, and finally back out into the street. My ears ring from the loud music and drunken people stumble in and out of the club under the watchful eyes of the bouncers. The cool night air is like a balm, a tonic, and I drink it in.

I feel much less drunk all of a sudden, which is good. But it also makes me hyperaware of my hand in Peeta’s, of our dancing, of what I thought would easily, automatically, inevitably turn into a kiss. He tugs me along and I follow, one hand gripping on my bag to keep it pressed against my body.

“Here,” he says, and I look around to realise that we’re a little way down from the club entrance, leaning against a brick wall with a dozen others all smoking or just getting some fresh air.

“Thanks,” I say, breathing in the night air. Peeta pulls at his collar, fanning himself. “I’m not surprised,” I tell him, rummaging in my bag to check I’ve still got all my things. “You were dancing up a storm in there.”

Peeta grins. “What can I say? I like to move.”

“That you do,” I quip. Everything feels like a double entendre. I keep my eyes on the contents of my bag.

“You’re not impressed?”

“What you lack in skill you make up for in passion,” I say, patting his forearm. He scoffs, leaning against the wall, arm outstretched, palm against the brick.

“I’ll definitely need a shower when I get back,” he shrugs. He has that slightly slow look that drunk people get, just a touch of slurring on his speech, but I can tell he has a lot more dancing in him yet.

“Me too,” I say. I procure my cigarettes but can’t find a lighter. “You don’t have one, do you?” I ask him, a stupid question, really, and he shakes his head, and then looks around for the nearest smoker and gestures. A guy offers him a lighter in the shape of the Tower of Piza, which he gives to me. He stands close while I light it, blocking the breeze. “Thanks,” I say when it’s lit, and he nods, handing it back to the guy before leaning back against the wall beside me.

We’re quite for a minute. He pulls out his phone presumably to text Finnick or Annie. I take a deep drag and blow the smoke into the air, watching it catching in the light of a streetlamp. I feel alive, my body humming with energy. We’re so close. Is he going to say nothing of how we were dancing? That’s not exactly a platonic thing to do. It feels like a crossed bridge in our fledging relationship, and I _want_ to talk about it. I want to ask him what he means by it. If he wanted to kiss me the way I wanted to kiss him.

If I kissed him right now, would he reciprocate? Would he want me with the same intensity that’s been building in me ever since, if I’m honest, he sat down opposite me in Sant’Oreste? If I took his hand and hailed a taxi and took him back to my apartment, would he come willingly? And afterwards, would our relationship, whatever it is, wherever it’s going, be ruined? Or, perhaps, and the possibility makes my heart skip a beat, would it be something good? Am I just scared of either possible outcome?

Rather than voice any of these concerns, I just smoke, and then he pockets his phone.

“You want…?” I offer the cigarette. He hesitates, and then shrugs _sure_ and takes it, holding it in the gangly way of a non-smoker. I only really smoke socially or occasionally on my travels, often as a mode of relaxation, but at least I know how to hold a cigarette, how to inhale without spluttering, which Peeta does.

“Sorry,” he says, coughing. He takes another drag, though, better this time. Our fingers brush when I take back the cigarette. I smile at him.

“Are you having a good time?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I nod. “I haven’t been in a club for a while.”

“Not the same when you’re alone, huh?”

“It’s just kind of sad, then.”

“I’m glad to have made your night better, then.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you. I like Annie and Finnick a lot.”

Peeta looks at me, a smirk pulling at his mouth. I follow the movement before I can help myself and when I look up the sight of him, heralded in the dim streetlight, in the smoky air, I feel my stomach swoop. I take a drag to steady myself.

“What?” I say, self-conscious, and he just shrugs.

“Nothing.” A beat. “Annie and Finn are great. I’m glad you like them.”

I look at his mouth again. “Yeah.”

“Thanks for preventing me from third-wheeling all evening.”

“Sure,” I say. Is this—is he hinting? Why won’t he just _say_ something? Or _do_ something? Why don’t _I_ do something??

Peeta reaches for the cigarette again, and I let him have it, if only to feel his fingers graze mine again. Every time it’s like a little electric shock.

Down the street, towards the entrance of the club, the music suddenly seems to blast louder, a bass-heavy, throbbing song, one that I know I’d dance to. I’d dance with Peeta to it. On him. Remembering how we danced in there, in that dark, hot room, surrounded by hundreds but entirely in a world of our own—it makes me go a little red. I’ve often pushed away any such feelings because I don’t know how to handle them. Don’t know how to act on them. Fear of no reciprocation and all that. Although it’s obvious, the introspective thought occurs to me that the reason I either don’t go for people or feel conflicted after I do, is because I’m always worried about being rejected or about losing people.

Peeta hasn’t indicated that he wants me, and yet I still have doubts. Doubts based on what-ifs. But there’s enough there, between us, that I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I kissed him. If I encouraged his hands to move from my hips. So what if he ultimately rejected me? What are the odds that we bump into each other a third time?

I have to be an adult. I have to take the reins with who and what I want. I’ve been travelling solo for over a year—it’s about time that I get over my fear of losing someone I want. And I want Peeta.

I stub out the rest of the cigarette, even though it’s barely halfway through, and turn to him. Peeta, who’s leaning back against the wall, head tilted slightly to look at the dim stars which can be seen beyond the city haze, tilts his head to look down and across at me. I open my mouth to say—what? What am I going to say?

“You ready to go back in?” he asks, and just like that, my determination collapses. I take a deep breath.

“Yeah,” I say, and away we go. Internally, I smack myself on the forehead.

We get back on the dancefloor and find Annie and Finnick dancing to a loud, cheesy pop song.

“Annie and Finnick are so in love,” I blurt out as we descend the steps, a little more wistfully than I’d intended. “It’s nice.”

“But jealousy-inducing, huh?” Peeta reads me like I’m an open book. I nod, unable to formulate a lie in defense. Peeta laughs. “Now isn’t the time for lamentation,” he says. Somehow he’s still eloquent even several drinks in.

“Now is the time to talk about politics!” I joke, and he cringes.

“Uh, no,” he laughs. “I left the States to get away from all that.”

If I can’t ask him to kiss me, hold me, want me the same way I want him, I can at least invite him to dance. So I do, holding out my hand, and he doesn’t hesitate before taking it.

We’re at the club for perhaps another hour, before Annie proclaims she is ready to go home. We traipse out and stop at fast food chain for fries, a decided decline in quality from our fancy restaurant dinner, compounded by how we eat said fries as we walk along the street. It’s good company and even though I’m fast descending from my alcohol high, I feel bright and awake. Fries eaten, Finnick calls for a taxi, and it drops me off first.

“Hey!” Annie says, leaning through the window. “We’re having brunch tomorrow. Please join us.”

“I’d be happy to. Get Peeta or Finnick to text me the time and address,” I call back. She reaches out and I grab her hand, squeezing it. I almost feel like I’m in the ladies bathroom again, bonding intensely with a random other girl. I grin at her and at Finnick’s fond expression beside her.

“Alright,” she says. “Text us when you’re upstairs and safe, okay? I had a really good night.” Then, fixing me with a look, she adds, “Così ha fatto il nostro comune amico.” _So did our mutual friend._ I look at her, eyes widening. _Peeta_. She just winks at me.

I look at Finnick and then at Peeta, who is reclining in his seat and smiling. “See you tomorrow,” I blurt out, and he does that smile that makes me feel like I should just pull him by his lapels from the taxi and drag him upstairs and tell him to make good on what he seems to have been promising all evening through his looks and touches. Damnit.

I wave until the taxi is out of sight and then dart up into my building. By the time I reach my floor, I’m ready to shower off my makeup and collapse into bed. I do just that, making sure to text Annie that I’m alright, before glugging some water and setting an alarm. (I’m too old to be going to bed sweaty, dehydrated, and at the mercy of my own internal wake-up clock.) Then I’m out for the count, embraced by my pillows and soft sheets, the ghost of Peeta’s hands and gaze lingering on.

The next morning, I wake with a dry mouth and a slight headache but a big dumb smile on my face.

I find my phone and see Peeta’s text about brunch.

**Peeta:** _good morning! Hope you’re not feeling terrible_

He follows with a location and time for brunch—a nearby café that I’ve been to once before. I have an hour before I’m meant to be there, plenty of time to get ready after shooting off a quick reply, thinking of his sloppy dancing and frankly his missed opportunity to kiss me. Maybe he just didn’t have the courage. I certainly didn’t, and now I don’t know how it’ll play out in the light of day.

**Me:** _i drank some water so i’m feeling fine… how are you?_

**Peeta:** _i definitely pulled something in my leg. sorry for exposing you to my dance moves lol_

**Me:** _i didn’t mind. make sure to do your stretches_

**Peeta:** _I really am an old man aren’t i?? see u later._

**Me:** _see you soon!_

I climb out of bed and drink some more water, and then deal with my face in the bathroom. I wipe the leftover makeup off and apply sunscreen, and then some minimal makeup. I spend too long picking out something to wear, perusing my limited closet and selecting a light linen dress that makes me feel fancy and does my straight-up-and-down figure some serious favours. I unwind my hair from the sloppy braids I managed to put it in, throw on my shoes, and find my purse, and then make my way out into Rome.

Arriving at the café, I find Finnick nursing a hangover, sunglasses covering half of his face, Annie looking fresh as a daisy, and Peeta looking like he wants to take a nap.

“Wild scenes this morning,” I say in greeting, and Annie just rolls her eyes. Peeta jerks upright and Finnick doesn’t move.

“These two cannot handle their alcohol,” she says, patting Finnick on the leg. “Sit, Katniss, please.”

I sit somewhat nervously, order something to drink, and then peer at Peeta, who has awakened a little more.

“How’s the leg?” I ask him, and he grimaces, stretching the offending limb out over the cobbles.

“Don’t even,” he says lowly. “How come you and Annie look so nice and I look like trash?”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t look like trash,” I say. “You look fine. Now come on, choose what you want to eat.”

We sit and discuss the menu before ordering, and then Peeta inhales some tea and Finnick sits very still and sips some coffee, and by the time our brunch arrives, we’re talking as a group again. We talk about last night’s meal, club experience, and about Rome’s nightlife. I don’t miss the way Annie steals glances at Peeta and I. If she thinks something is going on between us, though, she’ll be sorely disappointed. Even if I wanted to go for it, I think Peeta just doesn’t see me in that way.

I try not to let that thought get me down as we eat and chat, but just being beside the man himself makes it kind of hard to think of much else. We bump elbows and knees like the night before. We pass each other condiments or dishes and brush hands. I sit next to him and try to resist my brain’s attempts at force-feeding me images of him topless, of him in bed beside me, or him dancing in the club, of his hands so low on my hips.

_Jesus_. I think to myself. _I’m getting as bad as Johanna._

I focus on talking to the people around me instead. Discussing Annie’s job, Finn’s inability to handle what appears to actually be a mild hangover, Peeta’s travels, my travels. Anything to stop me thinking about Peeta himself.

Eventually our brunch is eaten, our drinks replenished and emptied once again, and even Finnick’s mood is lifted by the company and the sunshine, and then Annie and Finnick announce that they need to depart if they want to get home at a reasonable time. We pay up and say our goodbyes. Peeta and Finnick give each other a bear hug, laughing and talking about something that’s obviously an old joke, and Annie pulls me aside, hugging me tightly as well.

“It has been so nice to meet you, Katniss,” she says. “You’re always welcome to visit me and also Finnick. Very welcome. I am very serious about this.”

“I don’t doubt that you are, Annie,” I reply, because even over just a few hours of knowing her I can tell she’s entirely too kind a person. Does Peeta attract these kinds of people? “Thank you. It’s been so nice to meet you too. And Finnick. I can tell why Peeta is such good friends with you.”

She smiles at me, green eyes glittering in the sunlight. She squeezes my elbow and fixes me with a look. “Speaking of Peeta…” she begins, and she doesn’t leave me room to protest. “I’m not going to stop anything, but I must know—do you like him? Because he likes you very much. He has not stopped talking about you.”

Something overwhelming fills my chest. “We barely know each other,” I protest.

“That does not matter,” Annie says, shaking her head. “Peeta is a friendly guy, but with you it is different. I can see it.”

“Different how?” I ask, heart racing. Annie gives me a meaningful look.

“I think you know,” she says. My heart swoops and I have to take a steadying breath. She squeezes my hand. “Look—he will not want me to say this to you, but I’m going to say it anyway, because I think you like him also. Do not be afraid to go for him. He would wait forever rather than make a wrong move and risk a friendship. So please, if you like him the way I think you do, do not leave him hanging.”

I blink, nodding slowly. “Okay,” I say, not a promise, but not a rejection, either. She’s tapped into my head and reached the thoughts that have been circling since the day I turned and left Peeta in Rome. Perhaps since that day I saw him in the piazza in Sant’Oreste.

Annie beams. “Good,” she says, kissing me on the cheek. “He is a really good guy, but I think you already know that.”

I smile to myself. “Yeah,” I murmur, and she goes to hug Peeta goodbye. Finnick replaces her, hugging me.

“Did she already talk to you?” he asks. By the look on my face he takes it that she did, and laughs. “I would have done it if she hadn’t got to you first.”

“You’ve both discussed… this?”

“If by ‘this’ you mean the connection between you, mysterious stranger and my handsome American friend, then yes.” He flashes his bright white teeth at me. “I believe in love at first sight, even if you do not. I do not think you will regret it.”

He kisses me on the cheek. “Ha un cuore tenero,” he says. _He has a soft heart._ I nod, overwhelmed.

“Non so cosa dire,” I reply. _I don’t know what to say._

“Non pensarci troppo,” he winks. _Don’t overthink it._

I feel a little dazed, watching them get into a taxi, waving enthusiastically, Annie blowing a kiss our way. Peeta and I wave them both off. Once their car is out of sight, we turn to each other and give an awkward laugh.

“I feel like I’ve been under a spell for the past twenty-four hours,” I say, which is more put-together than I had expected to come out of my mouth after that onslaught of Annie and Finnick effectively giving me their blessing.

“Beautiful people have that effect on me too,” Peeta admits, and I look at him, and he smiles at me. Then he furrows his brow. “What did they say to you?”

A brief spike of panic. “What?”

“When they hugged you goodbye. I know they said something… they like to meddle.”

I squint slightly at him. Is he trying to get me to say what he already suspects? Is he worried that his friends have said too much, and that I’m scared off?

“They didn’t say anything,” I shrug, looking back down the street. “We were just talking about travelling.”

“Huh,” Peeta says. He pushes his hand through his hair, a movement I’m quickly learning is a mildly anxious one. I clear my throat, feeling just as jittery.

“So, what are you going to do now they’re gone?” I ask after a moment.

“I was just going to stay in Rome for a few more days, and then pick the next place to go. I’m trying to go with the flow, you know?” He pulls a face like he regrets saying the cheesy phrase which makes me smile.

“I do know,” I say, as if I haven’t spent the past four or five days thinking about whether I should have acted on my attraction to Peeta, decidedly _not ‘_ going with the flow’.

“What about you?” he asks.

“Well, my lease on my apartment runs out in two days, so I’ll be gone soon. I’m headed to Florence next.”

He nods in interest. “Moving north?”

“Yep. Right to Switzerland. Or that’s the plan, at least. I’ll probably take some detours.”

“Well, since we’re both here for the time being, how about we go around Rome together?” Peeta suggests. His tone suggests it’s just a casual offer, but something in his face tells me he cares much more about asking and getting an answer than he wants me to realise. And that’s comforting, making me feel less alone in this turmoil of emotion than I expected.

Peeta keeps talking when I don’t answer. “Obviously you’ve been here much longer, you’re probably bored, I but haven’t seen so much of it, and we’re both here, and it could be fun. Like Sant’Oreste and Caprarola. But only if you want to. Hang out with me, that is.”

“Peeta,” I breathe. “I’d love to.”

The corner of his mouth lifts into a lopsided smile. “Really?”

I feel like adrenaline is coursing through me. “Why not? It went pretty well for us last time.”

“That it did,” he says, kicking at the cobbles below.

I watch him for a moment. Was he really that nervous about asking? I suppose I would be. It might have been easier in Sant’Oreste because we really were strangers with no expectations of each other. Now… now it’s different. Even if Annie and Finnick hadn’t said anything to me, just being around him after that night at the club would have altered things.

And yet when I ask him my next question, I don’t feel nervous. Not really. It just feels right to ask, an obvious thing to do if we’re going to both be in Rome for a while longer.

“You said you’re staying in a hostel?” I ask, wiping my palms on my thighs. _Okay, maybe I am nervous. Too late now, I’ve already brought it up._

“Yeah,” Peeta says. “It’s pretty decent for how cheap it is and I’ve been to some real cheap places.” He laughs like he’s remembering something mildly scarring. I think of all the gross hostels I’ve ended up in, with their equally as gross hosts and or tenants.

I force myself to keep talking. “I have space at my apartment. You can stay with me if you want. Might make it easier if we’re going to be going around Rome together? You can say no. No pressure. But it might be nice.”

Peeta looks at me in a way that makes my chest feel like it’s splitting in two. The perfect balance of surprise and gratitude.

“You’re serious?” he asks.

“Deadly,” I say, feeling weirdly shaky.

He exhales a laugh of disbelief. “Jesus, Katniss, I need to pick up my game—you’re way too nice to me, offering to help me out. I’d be more than happy to stay with you instead. Thank you so much.”

“Sure,” I say, trying to make it sound like it’s nothing, even though I feel like I’m only just catching up to my brain, which has just told Peeta to stay with me in an apartment which technically has two beds, if you include the sofa, to share my space, to travel through one of the most romantic cities in Europe with me—my brain apparently has more courage than I’m ready to grapple with.

Peeta’s hand twitches at his side like he wants to reach out for me. I want him to hug me. I want to hug him. But the moment’s passed where it wouldn’t feel a little awkward, so I reach forward instead and put my fingertips lightly on his tricep as if to get him to move.

“Let’s go get your stuff from the hostel then, bring it back to mine. We’ve got the rest of the day to start our _tour di Roma_.”

Peeta grins, shoulders relaxing. “That’s what this is?” he asks as we begin walking west. “A tour?”

“Don’t expect me to be your tour guide,” I say, and he elbows me.

As we head for his hostel, we talk about our past experiences with them—good and bad—and about tourists and travel. We arrive at a poky but decent-looking place, and I hang about outside in the street while Peeta checks out and grabs his things. He emerges ten minutes later with that giant rucksack and I feel a serious sense of déjà vu as he walks towards me.

“Ready?” I ask, and we head back the way we came.

I feel oddly nervous as we get closer to my apartment. I’m not a messy person, and it’s not even my home, per say. I’ve been there for four months, more than enough time to feel comfortable in it, but it isn’t mine, isn’t a true representation of who I am as a person. It’s transient, temporary. Maybe more representative than I realise.

“Mind the steps,” I say as we ascend the spiral staircase.

“This is nuts,” Peeta says, one hand on the banister to keep his balance. “Who has this kind of staircase?”

“Hey, it’s not like we have to carry furniture up here,” I remind him.

We reach my floor and I unlock the door and step back to let Peeta in first. He steps into the living space, turns slowly, taking it all in. The little kitchen. The door leading to the bedroom. The doors leading onto the balcony. The little stained glass window above the kitchen sink, an original and unique little detail. The walls, painted a soft, burnished yellow but maintaining an aged feel to them. The tiles underfoot.

“This is really nice,” Peeta says. “How’d you find this?”

“Luck,” I shrug.

“Where should I put my stuff?” he asks, thumbing at the straps of the backpack.

“Oh,” I say. I’m not about to force him to share a bed with me again. “Well, there’s one bedroom. But this couch pulls out. It seems pretty comfortable.”

“Perfect,” he says, setting his backpack down and leaning it against the back of the couch. “This is already a million times better than bunkbeds in a dorm.”

“Cool,” I murmur. “Well, get yourself settled. Bathroom is just through the bedroom. There’s water, obviously, and juice in the fridge. Help yourself.”

I leave him to get sorted, going to the kitchen to make myself a coffee, which I take and drink out on the balcony so I can answer texts and try not to think about how for the second time since knowing him for two and a half days, I’ve invited Peeta back with me twice, and wanted to do so for a third.

After half an hour or so, Peeta comes back through with a glass of water, his phone, and a guidebook.

“Got a list of places to go?” I ask.

“Just a few,” he remarks. “The Pantheon and Trevi fountain aren’t far. I’d love to visit them.”

I nod. “They’re a good afternoon activity. Want to spend the rest of the day walking around random piazzas and looking at old buildings?”

“Sounds perfect,” he says. Then he looks out into the street. It’s not the best view, a nondescript street with huddles of tourists ghosting past in the shade, but when the sun dips around and starts to set, it spills golden-orange light all the way along the cobbles. “A great view you’ve got too,” Peeta admires. “You’re spoiling me, really.”

I roll my eyes and hide my smile behind my coffee cup.

We sit for a little while longer, sipping our respective drinks. I mess around on my phone, telling Gale about my plans once again since he still doesn’t believe I’m actually going to grace him and Madge with my presence, and informing Johanna that I have made a friend (or three).

**Jo:** _WHO?? a boy???_

**Me:** _would it matter if it was?_

**Jo:** _yes brainless it really would_

**Me:** _girls and boys can just be friends_

**Jo:** _I know. But like. You don’t have to be_

**Jo:** _is he cute? Have u told hawthorne?_

**Me:** _course I haven’t. I’m not insane_

**Jo:** _I think maybe u are… are u hanging out?_

I grimace at my phone as I type _yeah. He’s actually living with me for a few days_

There’s no reply for about a minute, which is an eon in Johanna terms, and then,

**Jo:** _are you dumb? Or is he really fucking hot???_

**Jo:** _i get why you haven’t told hawthorne now he’d be fretting like an old maid_

**Me:** _don’t tell him!! omg jo, do not tell gale_

**Jo:** _I can’t make any promises_

**Me:** _I’m serious_

**Jo:** _me too bitch._

**Jo:** _fine. I won’t say anything unless u go missing_

**Me:** _I’m not going to go missing jfc_

**Jo:** _send me a pic of this sexy mysterious Italian man pls_

I roll my eyes. _He’s not even Italian. He’s actually from panem lol_

**Jo:** _are u kidding me? an American?_

**Jo:** _disgusting and disappointing. Send me a damn picture so i can see if it’s he’s even worth my time_

**Me:** _your time??? What about me?_

I don’t send her a picture, mostly because I haven’t got any, but also because I don’t want to surreptitiously snap a photo of Peeta frowning at his pocket guidebook to Rome and send it to my friend like a creep. I’ll have to wait until we’re out and about, and take a photo to send there, where it’s more normal to do so.

We soon enough decide to get on with our day, looping lazily through streets and squares and courtyards. We visit the Pantheon first, since it’s closest, and gaze at it from a little way back since there’s a great swarm of tourists right up close.

“I can’t imagine a city like this being built today,” I murmur. The structure is just so beautiful, timelessly elegant, and to be standing after all this time, still admired… it’s awe-inspiring to say the least.

“Somehow I don’t see the skyscrapers of the last hundred years being visited like these buildings are,” Peeta replies. He laughs. “Imagine if we treated the Justice Building in Merchantville like it was the Pantheon.”

I laugh at the concept. The Justice Building is an old thing, or old for the States, ugly and made more so by attempts to ‘update’ it in the seventies and early 2000s. It’s listed as a place of interest in Panem, but any tourists in the state are only there for the mountains, not grubby little government buildings.

Next we head for the Trevi Fountain. Peeta pulls out a tiny notebook and a pencil and I wander aimlessly around the piazza while he sketches. By the time I’m back, he’s filled three pages, some scratchier displays of the entire fountain and parts of the architecture behind it, and the others are more detailed, capturing the carved stone figures perfectly, the shadow and the light.

“You’re so talented,” I say, and he pushes his hand through his hair like he’s embarrassed. “Have you ever thought about going to art school or something? Or making art your job?”

“Yeah,” Peeta murmurs. “That was my dream, actually. But the pay and success rate for artists is pretty variable, and I never managed to get to art school, so…” He trails off. I cringe internally, knowing I’ve hit a sore spot that he doesn’t want to talk about.

“There’s still time,” I say lightly. “Now come on, we’ve still got a lot to see.”

Neither of us are in much of a rush, and most of the time we just end up drifting from one place to the other. I’ll stand and take in a building or sculpture or just the simplistic beauty of a street that locals probably think nothing of, while Peeta will sketch, a look of fierce determination on his face as he does so. And every time, each piece is perfect. He works with such apparent ease that it’s enough to make me jealous.

As we walk, we chat more about Rome. Peeta tells me more about the styles of architecture we pass—Baroque is his favourite, while I’m all about anything with pillars—and I point out the cafes I’ve already been to, giving my rating on the various dishes I’ve eaten throughout the city. Eventually we end up on the riverbank, walking along tree-lined avenues as people cycle and stroll pass.

“This is nice,” Peeta says when we find a grassy slope to sit on just to rest our feet for a moment. It’s not quite Lake Vico, but it’ll do. He was right. Good company can improve any situation.

“It is,” I reply, leaning back on my hands, feeling the grass under my palms. In the distance, a bell is ringing. A little way behind us, a scooter zips past. Closer to the water, an old man walks an excitable dog. Above, the trees shift in the gentle breeze, shielding us from the bright late afternoon sun. Peeta sketches again, and I just people watch.

Eventually both our stomachs are rumbling and we set off to pick up groceries instead. The store I take us to is a local independent place, a little pricey but so close by and carrying such a range of fresh produce for a city store that I can’t say no. We go up and down the aisles, discussing Italian food and supermarkets compared to those in the US.

“No need to worry about salmonella here,” Peeta proclaims, picking up a carton of eggs. “I could crack one of these babies open and eat it raw.”

“I will _pay_ you to do that,” I say, arching an eyebrow, and he lifts both of his in challenge.

“Here?”

“That wasn’t part of it but sure.”

“I’ll save it for home,” he says, seemingly deadly serious, putting the eggs into the basket over his arm.

A little while later, I’m laden down with a bag of apples and a loaf of bread, and Peeta is heaving along a basket filled with a hundred other items.

“This is nice,” I say, echoing him. “I like having someone to carry my stuff.”

“I bet you do,” he says dryly, setting the basket down at the end of the conveyor belt. “Its fine, I’ve got big muscles.”

“And a hideous personality,” I shoot back, and he feigns upset, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. I shrug. “Hey, when you go fishing, sometimes you catch a boot.”

Peeta elbows me. “Jerk.”

I smile at him, and then look away to focus on bagging and paying for the groceries. All of this feels a little flirty—and Peeta explicitly mentioning his muscles? It’s not like I needed a reason to look at his chest or his arms or even his ass. Plus, this domestic turn to our day is unexpected but I can’t help but feel utterly pleased with it. I like Peeta’s company, and he makes even everyday tasks like shopping for food a pleasant experience. Whether it’s because he’s just that good looking, or just because he’s so nice and easy-going—in fact, it’s most likely a mix of both—he just makes me feel good.

Even more thrilling, or startling, is that I want him to feel good too. I want to be good company. I want to be a friend, a good tour guide, a fun travel companion. At risk of stressing myself out by building expectations of myself that Peeta has given zero indication he holds, it’s what I want. For Peeta to have as good a time as I’m currently having. No matter how brief our time together is, I want him to remember it as fondly as I hope I will.

Suddenly the idea of going home to my apartment to be alone seems like a bad thing, as if I haven’t been doing that for months now, enjoying my own company, doing what I want, when I want. I haven’t felt lonely. Far from it. I’ve felt independent and liberated. That’s why I’m a little surprised that having Peeta by my side doesn’t feel stifling. And sure, it’s been what, two days, three if you count Sant’Oreste and Caprarola, and for one of those days, we had additional company, so maybe by the time I leave Rome, I’ll be sick of him, but somehow I doubt it. Right now, I’m just happy to know that I’m going to be spending the next few days with him. I’ll see him in the morning and he’ll be the last person I see at night.

Something bright and fluttery flashes in my chest and I have to take a deep breath to tamp it down. I thank the cashier and pick up the bags I brought along to carry our things, Peeta shouldering two others, and we head back out into the sun.

The walk back to my place is quiet. Peeta remarks again at my building and wonders aloud if I think that sliding down the spiral banister is a smart or stupid idea. Once inside the apartment, we put all the groceries into their respective places, and then I go to freshen up.

“Put some music on, or the TV, make yourself at home,” I say, leaving him in the kitchen as I head for my bedroom to put on some cosy socks and roll on some deodorant after a day walking in the sun. I also pull a pillow from my bed and a blanket from the cupboard in the hallway to add to the couch. It doesn’t get too cold in the apartment, but then again, I haven’t slept on the couch.

“Hey, thanks,” Peeta says when I put them down next to his backpack. He’s put on some calming, slightly jazzy background music and has already started prepping vegetables.

“Sure,” I say. “What’re you doing?”

“You’ve been more than welcoming to me, letting me stay with you here,” he says. “I have to earn my keep.”

“By cooking? You can cook?” I ask. He begins chopping an onion with practiced ease, practically answering my question.

“I dabble,” he shrugs, only adding to my proof.

“Can I help?” I ask, feeling a bit useless. I’m no chef and I’m more than happy to let him do his thing if he’s so inclined, but I don’t want to just laze around.

“You can make us some drinks,” he suggests. “I trust your judgement on that.”

I sense it’s a slight dig at the night at the club, when I bought him drinks, or maybe even brunch after, when I ordered three mimosas for myself, and I narrow my eyes at him. “I didn’t get any complaints about my drink choices when you were doing your best impression of interpretive dancing at 2 a.m.,” I deadpan.

He laughs in that loud sarcastic way some people can perfect. Just before he speaks, I remember how _we_ danced, as in, I danced _on_ him and he reciprocated. My face burns, so I open the fridge and stick my head inside.

“My dancing is legendary,” he boasts. I pull out a bottle of wine and find some glasses and then just briefly look at him while his back is turned as he chops and dices. Am I a perv? Maybe? But that white shirt and shorts combo flatters him in a way I didn’t think was possible.

I pour some wine, take a big gulp from my glass, and then immediately refill it.

“Here,” I say, sliding Peeta his. “Cheers,” I say.

“ _Saluti_ ,” he replies in a terrible accent, and we tap glasses and drink.

It turns out that Peeta is a great cook, and that I’m getting in the way more than anything else. So I duck out before I embarrass myself, leaving him to do what he needs to do. I set the table out on the balcony, possibly taking more time and effort with the place settings and the candle in the middle, but who’s there to question me? I pour more wine and then lean against the counter where I won’t get in the way and Peeta talks about cooking, almost with the same joy and passion as he does art.

“But, I mean, _baking_ ,” he says, hand going over his heart, swooning slightly. “That’s where I’m really at home. I love to cook but baking is my true love. My dad owned a bakery when I was a kid, taught me everything he knew. I can make a mean sourdough, let me tell you.”

“I believe you,” I say.

“I’ll have to make you a loaf of bread,” he says seriously, like it’s a vow.

“You’re making an awful lot of promises, Peeta. First the raw egg, and now _bread?_ ”

“I’m a man of many talents,” he says, bending to slide a tray into the heated oven. In my head, a voice whistles and says _I bet you are!!!_ but in the real world, where objectification of this kind is generally frowned upon, I just snort.

“I’m not hearing any eggs cracking,” I say dryly. He looks at me and then barges forward, shouldering me out of the way. He opens the fridge. He pulls out the box of eggs and selects one. I gasp and say _oh my god, Peeta, no! I wasn’t serious!_ which makes him laugh and fake-out on smashing it over my head.

“You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” I hiss, grabbing a spatula and wielding it against him. He puts the egg back.

“Now I have the element of surprise on my side,” he crows. “You’ll never know when to eggs-pect it.”

I groan and he high-fives himself and goes back to cooking. I hide my grin behind my wine.

Dinner is served, a plethora of roasted vegetables and grains and perfectly seasoned, tender chicken. Given that I don’t cook meat myself out of fear of food poisoning, it’s a real treat to say the least. Peeta plates it up with restaurant-level attention to detail, and then I carry it out to the balcony. I light the candle and we sit down.

“Perfect timing,” I say. The sun is setting, casting an orange glow all along the street.

“To perfect timing, perfect food, and perfect company,” Peeta says, holding up his glass. We toast again and he grins at me. I grin back and we begin to eat. This is perfect. And sat opposite him, our feet knocking under the table, his golden hair glowing in the soft orange light, I can’t imagine that it can get any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: the entire Ungodly Hour album by Chloe x Halle, but especially ‘Tipsy’ and ‘Ungodly Hour’. Also the club music could be something like ‘Mediterranea’ by Irama but maybe also ABBA? Does ABBA play in Italian nightclubs?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One night while I was writing this chapter a spider dropped down on line from the ceiling and nearly landed on me... I took it outside and had to take a break after that :/
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter: Volare, Test of Time, and The Look by Dean Martin (1958), and Amsterdam by Gregory Alan Isakov!

**{3} Rome II**

The next morning, I wake to the sound of cutlery clattering and the smell of coffee in the air. I’m confused for a moment, but then I remember and I can’t help but smile.

I get up and dart to the bathroom to wash, moisturise, and SPF my face, drag a brush through my hair and tie it out of my face, and then stare at my wardrobe for about five minutes to figure out what to wear. One glance at my phone tells me it’s going to be a sweltering day, so I pick a pair of shorts and a breezy white blouse that makes me feel vaguely Shakespearean but will definitely keep me cool. I might unbutton a button or two to show off the nice bra I’m wearing, but that’s my business.

“Hey!” Peeta says when I step into the kitchen. “Good morning!”

His energy is infectious, and I’m not even a morning person. “Good morning,” I respond. “How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well,” he says. “I’ve got coffee ready for you, and I’ve made omelettes.”

I lean over and spy the omelettes. Far from sad egg-and-cheese concoctions I’ve attempted in the past, these are hefty, filled with tomatoes and spinach and two types of cheese.

“They look amazing,” I say, going straight for the coffee machine. “You having tea?”

“Please,” he says, lifting the edge of the omelette. I pour myself some coffee while his tea steeps, and then chop up some apples for one bowl and pour some blueberries into another, bringing it all out onto the balcony. I catch up on texts from my friends and check my bank statement and emails while I wake up properly, drinking coffee and eyeing the people walking below. Occasionally someone will look up and even more occasionally they’ll smile wistfully, reminding me that I really have lucked out with this place, even just for a few months.

And then Peeta comes through with the omelettes and I realise I’ve lucked out even more in terms of picking my company.

“I’m so glad you can cook,” I say as he sits opposite me and taps his mug of tea against my coffee.

“I told you, I’ve got to justify my being here somehow,” he says, grinning.

We chat while we eat, and when we’re quiet, it doesn’t feel awkward. I don’t feel the need to fill the silence. Instead, we both check our respective phones or just look out at the street. I compliment his cooking repeatedly. He throws fruit at me and I impress him by catching it the majority of the time.

“I have really good aim,” I say nonchalantly. “I was an archery champion in high school.”

His eyes bug out comically. “Archery? Really?”

“Why are you surprised?”

“It’s not your average high school sport… but I’ll keep you on speed dial for the inevitable apocalypse.”

“Hey, Seamtown had three clubs: archery, mining, and survival skills.”

“Those are not the clubs my school had?”

“I suppose you had water polo or something,” I sniff, and he scoffs.

“We had _normal_ clubs, thank you very much. Merchantville wasn’t about preparing its students for the end of days.”

After breakfast, we pack our respective bags, I put a hat on my head and lend him an old baseball cap to add to his sunglasses, and then we head for the colosseum. I’ve been already, but left feeling like I hadn’t spent enough time to take it all in, so I’m more than happy to go back. We get there early enough that the crowds aren’t hideous, and the weather is driving some people away as well. We tour the entire structure, gazing at the ruins, listening to a tour guide explaining how and why gladiator fights occurred. I try to imagine the place in its prime, filled with Romans, with brave (or unfortunate) gladiators in the ring.

The tour takes most of the morning, and at the end of it, Peeta spends about an hour in the gift shop just staring at the books about the mosaics and paintings that once adorned the structure. In the end he just buys a keychain, hooking it onto his bag.

“Trashy or classy?” he asks me, sticking is leg out like a fashion model.

“You make it work,” I say, laughing. “You should’ve got one of those books.”

“I’ve got a million already,” he shrugs. “And I can’t keep buying them because then I’m the sorry sucker who has to carry them around.”

Next we stand by the Arch of Constantine, necks craned back as we gaze at it.

“Reminds me of the Arc de Triomphe,” Peeta says, and then we end up talking about our respective travels in France, realising we were both in Lyon around the same time. I try not to think too much about that and the possibilities attached to it. Why did we meet in a tiny Italian town, and not in France or any other place? Why here? Why now?

We find somewhere to grab lunch, and the delicious meal only confirms that I’ll truly never get sick of pasta. The simple tortellini dish reminds me of home, of my father cooking with liberal amounts of olive oil and garlic, but rather than feel deflated and downtrodden from the burst of nostalgia, it just makes me feel warm inside.

We visit Circus Maximus, and the Baths of Caracalla too, since they’re close by. Lots of it is ruins, some of it barely a few ancient rocks and bricks half-covered by moss and grass, but I’ve always loved history, and Peeta loves art, so we’re in good shape.

Peeta picks up some cheap wine and we find a green space to lay down on, and while I read, Peeta actually falls asleep, like he’s an old man. I look at him, feeling like a creep at first but eventually just accepting that I like looking at his dumb face. He looks relaxed and a little burnt even in the shade, one arm under his head, the other holding his hat over his ribcage. It makes me feel fluttery knowing he felt comfortable enough—or maybe he really was just that tired—to fall asleep next to me.

I take a picture for blackmail purposes and then go back to reading.

Only thirty minutes must pass before he sort of coughs himself awake, looking a little wild-eyed.

“Jesus, I fell asleep, didn’t I?” he says, voice gravelly. He scrubs his face with his hands.

“You finished your wine like it was a baby’s bottle and drifted off within about five minutes.”

He groans but it trails off into a self-pitying laugh. “God, sorry, I’m not being great company.”

“I finished my book,” I say, wiggling it at him. “And I don’t mind downtime.”

“Did I snore?” he asks.

“No,” I murmur, thinking briefly of that night in that hotel, of waking up to him beside me, his arm around me, legs tangled with mine. “But you’re burning again. Put on some sun screen.”

I pass him the bottle and he applies it liberally, including to his nose.

“Hey, I’m not lobster-red yet, so that’s good,” he says once he smells faintly like coconut. “And we can’t all have gorgeously-tanned skin like you. I’m just a pasty white boy.”

I blink at him sat in the dapple sunlight, all gold and yellow and blue-eyed. “You’re not pasty,” I say, heart racing, because he seriously said my skin was gorgeous. “You’re cute, Peeta,” I chance, averting my gaze slightly.

He sort of just looks at me for the briefest of moments, and then smiles softly. “You’re pretty cute too, Katniss.”

I look back at him. Okay.

Slightly buzzed, we walk towards the river at a slow, easy pace. We take in cute, winding streets, stunning churches and cathedrals, a particularly ornate McDonalds. While I’m checking the map on my phone to make sure we’re not going too far in the wrong direction, I realise where we’ve ended up. We’re barely two blocks from the church my parents met at, years ago.

I’ve always known it was here, in Rome. I knew where it was. But I’ve never worked up the courage to actually visit, worried that I would have some adverse reaction to being there, knowing it was such an important place to my parents. My mother was in Rome to attend a nursing conference, and my father was a singer-come-carpenter who just so happened to be working on a relatively non-descript church in a city filled with them, and as she walked by, he stopped her with a compliment and they got talking. That was that. He followed her back to the States, they had me and then Prim and the rest was their history.

Peeta must realise I’m a little stalled by what I’ve realised, because he lightly touches my arm.

“You alright?” he asks. I look up from my phone and exhale.

“Yeah,” I say. I clear my throat. I’m here now. I have to go. I won’t be alone. Peeta will be there. I should have come here before. Maybe if I hadn’t been in this part of the city I would have left without ever visiting, and regretted it later on.

“There’s somewhere I want to go,” I say. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” Peeta replies. “Is it a tourist spot?”

“Not exactly.” I deliberate briefly. We’ve spoken little of our personal lives—parents, siblings, family, that is—and this is a highly personal thing. “My father worked in Rome when he was my age,” I begin, and just in those first few words, I feel a weight lifting off my shoulders. “My mother was visiting Rome and there’s a little church a few blocks away and that’s where they met.”

“So you want to visit?” Peeta says. I nod. “Obviously we have to go, then,” he exclaims. “Come on, Katniss. I’ll take your picture, you can send it to them!”

I don’t correct him on the reality that I can’t sent it to them, I can’t send it to anyone. It’ll just be for me. But I start walking anyway, palms sweating, and before I know it, we’re there.

The square it faces is tiny, boring compared to others. Only a few others tourists and locals are milling around or passing through. The church itself has a short set of stone steps at the front, and a large wooden door and plain stained glass windows, and yet as soon as I see it, it’s like I’m seeing that photo from my parent’s album. The two of them coming back on their honeymoon to pose outside of it, grinning like idiots, happy and carefree. It’s barely changed.

“Wow,” I breathe, staring at it. My hand goes to my chest before I can help it, emotion swelling there sudden and sharp. I laugh in spite of myself. “It’s not grand… but I always meant to visit,” I whisper. “I can’t believe I’m actually here.”

I just stand there and take it in for a good few moments. Peeta stands respectfully at my side.

“Did they marry here?” he asks after a while.

“No,” I say. “Just met. My father was doing repairs and my mom just happened to walk by.”

“Fate,” Peeta says. I nod. It really was.

“Can you take a photo of me?” I ask. Peeta nods without hesitation. I feel a little awkward standing there with such a huge building in front of me and so many random people around me, but I do my best to stand in at least a mildly flattering way and to smile. This is poignant place, an important place. More than anything, I’m just glad I’m here.

Peeta snaps away, and then walks forward again.

“I took a few,” he explains. “Have a look and tell me if you want some more.”

I scroll through the photos. They’re all good, all in focus, lit well, and seeing myself at a place I’ve only ever seen old photos of makes my heart grow another size. I’m about to tell Peeta that they’re perfect, when a woman approaches and in a thick accent says,

“Would you like me to take your photo? Two of you?”

Peeta and I flounder for a second.

“I—I, uh, I don’t mind, Katniss, I don’t want to ruin this place for you or anything—”

“You won’t, you won’t. Just—yeah, I’d like a photo with you. It’s alright.”

Then we both blurt out a mixture of _sure_ and _yes, thank you_ and then I hand my phone over and we sort of laugh awkwardly as the woman walks backwards a few steps, squinting at the phone screen. Although emotion is still raw in my chest, to laugh at this unexpected moment feels good. It’s what my parents would have wanted. What my father would have wanted.

“What do you want to do?” Peeta asks, looking at me. He pushes his sunglasses onto his head. “Prom style? Wedding? Back-to-back with finger guns?”

I roll my eyes but appreciate his levity. “Just stand nicely you weirdo,” I say, and then we put our arms lightly around each other, my hand on his side, his on my hip, and we smile. The woman makes an _aww_ sound and flaps her hand.

“Do another!” she calls. “Be happy and funny!”

So we do the finger guns one, even though I’m laughing all the way through it, and then Peeta makes me stand behind him like I’m taking him to a high school dance.

“Alright, alright,” I say, almost all the anguish and second-hand nostalgia of knowing that my parents met at this place being replaced by joy and laughter. “Thank you so much,” I tell the woman, who kisses me on the cheek and gives Peeta one on each, squeezing his arms like a grandmother or aunt would, before continuing on her way.

“How’d she do?” Peeta asks as I scroll through the pictures. She managed to get fifteen, apparently possessing a serious trigger finger, and they’re all pretty decent. There’s two of the first pose, a nice picture in itself, both of us smiling and not seeming stilted around each other, which in the back of my mind I feared, thinking I would be stood stiffly. Then there’s the mid-point where we were quickly getting into our finger guns pose, Peeta squabbling over having to get his best side. Then there’s the prom pose, and doesn’t that make us laugh.

But, in between, she’s managed to get some nice candids as well. One that makes my chest pang is me laughing at the camera while Peeta stands by my side, one arm loosely around me as he looks at me, smiling. I take in a breath. It’s a nice picture.

“They’re good,” I say, showing him the posed ones. “Now come on, let me take a picture of you as well.”

So I do, Peeta standing there like a dork, hands on his hips, squinting slightly in the sunlight.

“Oh, that’s real flattering,” he drawls when I show him, sounding more like Panem than I’ve heard thus far. “But it’s nice to have pictures of myself from this whole trip that aren’t just sad selfies. Send it to me.”

I send it, and also send it and the finger-guns one to Johanna, before silencing and pocketing my phone. She’s been bugging me about a picture of Peeta for a while now, threatening the inevitable, which is her blabbing to Gale that I’m travelling with a strange man.

The church is open, an early-evening service with a handful of patrons scattered in the pews, so we sneak in and sit at the back. I just sit in silence and take it in. It’s by no means ornate, reminding me more of a countryside church than the massive places elsewhere in Rome, but it feels right. It feels like I’m reaching back to my parents.

I must make a sound or perhaps a tear spills over because Peeta takes my hand and pulls it into his lap, squeezing, thumb running over my knuckles. I squeeze back, grateful, and watch the slowly sinking sun dipping through the windows, past rafters my father might have fixed, once upon a time, listening to the same service.

“Thank you,” I say when we leave. My hand tingles from where Peeta was holding it for so long. I give him a meaningful look. For two people who have shared a bed, this feels like a new step. A big step.

Peeta just nods. “I sensed it meant more to you to be there than you realised. That there’s more emotion there than you were ready for.”

I nod back. “Yeah,” I say. “You could say that.”

He doesn’t push for further explanation, but I give it anyway, short, cutting to the marrow of it all.

“My parents are dead,” I say. “And my sister. That’s why I’m travelling. To get a break from it all, some distance. But they’re always closer by than I expect.”

I swallow hard, a lump building in my throat. I won’t cry. Not after such a good and happy day. Peeta barely knows me. He doesn’t deserve to deal with this sudden onslaught of emotion.

“And are you happier that they are?” he asks. It’s the right question to follow with.

“Six months ago, I would’ve said no,” I say as we walk and walk, leaving the church behind. “I was trying to get away from them because it hurt so much to remember. But I’m glad they’re with me. I’m always glad.”

Peeta bumps his shoulder against mine, a reassuring gesture. I smile at him, choke out a slightly strangled laugh.

“Wow,” I say. “This got personal pretty quick, huh?”

“I don’t mind it,” he replies. “You want me to tell you my sob story to even it out?”

“Can I just wallow in my own crap first?” I ask. “I promise I’ll let you cry it out eventually.”

“Pinkie swear?” he asks, lifting his little finger. I loop mine around his.

“Pinkie swear,” I say, and he nods.

Once we’re back at my apartment, I go and sit on the balcony and stress smoke and dwell while Peeta cooks. I make sure to brush my teeth and drink some water to rid myself of the taste of cigarettes before we eat. I don’t want to miss out on his great culinary skills while I have them at my disposal.

I feel a little fragile, but otherwise mostly recovered by the time we’ve eaten, put the dishes into the washer and showered. We collapse on the couch to watch TV, and before long I’m yawning. The sun and the late-afternoon memory onslaught has really taken it out of me.

“I’m exhausted,” I say, standing and stretching. “Time for me to go to bed, I think.”

We complete our respective bedtime rituals, and then I’m closing up the bedroom for the night.

I don’t fall asleep for another two hours, and when I do, I just dream about Peeta’s hand in mine.

The next morning, I wake much later than anticipated and to a barrage of texts from Johanna.

**Jo:** _!!!!!!! !!!_

**Jo:** _he’s hot??? Unexpected surprise_

**Jo:** _i’m still disappointed he’s not Italian or like at least mediterranean but he will do_

**Jo:** _you fucking him yet???_

**Jo:** _when in rome…_

I’m not surprised by her response, but it still makes me feel embarrassed.

**Me:** _sorry not to fulfil your expectations_

**Me:** _and of course im not. We just met_

Regardless of what I’ve thought about Peeta physically, regardless of how we danced in that dark, sweaty club, regardless of our shared looks, bumping knees, the butterflies I get from his sweet smile and from the muscles of his arms against his t-shirts as he carries groceries or holds my bag for me when I re-tie my shoelaces.

Johanna quickly calls me, even though it must be around 5 am for her.

“What are you doing up?” I ask as the call connects, going to the window and pushing it open to let in some fresh morning air. I can’t smell breakfast or hear Peeta yet, so I assume he’s still asleep too and keep my voice low.

“I’ve got an early start, driving to Virginia,” Jo shrugs. She’s a tree surgeon, a skilled one, and often ends up getting special calls from across the country. She frowns at me. “And that’s not why I’m calling you, brainless. How’s Italy?”

“It’s almost ten a.m. here, sunny. Going to go to some galleries today, look at some art.”

“I _mean_ , how’s your boy toy?”

I pull a face. “He’s not my _boy toy_ ,” I whisper, hyperaware that he might overhear. Johanna scoffs.

“He totally is, Everdeen. Tell me again how you picked him up.”

So I do, leaving out some details and embellishing others. Jo calls me crazy yet again for agreeing to share my hotel room and then my apartment with a virtual stranger, and I can’t help but agree with her. The thing is, she hasn’t met him. I just know she’d change her mind if she did, understand why I’ve done it.

“He’s really lovely,” I insist. “And he cooks.”

“Dreamboat,” Johanna deadpans. She squints. “Can I see him? Say hello?”

“You gonna give him the shovel talk?” I ask, ducking into the bathroom to wash my face. It’s the wrong thing to say, because her mouth drops open.

“So you _are_ into him?!” she hisses. “You totally are. I’m honestly surprised, brainless. First a year of solo travel, and now shacking up with a random cute guy. If you call me again to say you’re engaged I’m coming to Italy to make sure this isn’t some brainwashing cult initiation situation.”

I splutter out my protests. “I’m not shacking up with anyone,” I say.

“So it _is_ a cult?”

“No!”

“Come on, you have what, one or two days left together? Why not make it memorable? Sleep with him, brainless, have a sordid affair for me, your best friend.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re not my best friend. And it’s memorable as it is.”

“He looks like he knows how to fuck,” Jo says plainly, and I choke out a laugh of disbelief. “He does,” she continues. “Admit it, you’ve thought about it.”

“I haven’t.”

“Or you’ve at least thought about making out… maybe getting your hands into those nice khaki shorts of his…” she fans herself and grins when I groan. “Hey, look,” she continues. “All I’m saying is that if you’ve invited him into your home, you should at least make the most of it. I don’t think he’ll be particularly offended by your advances.”

“Jo…” I protest.

“Where’s he sleeping if you’ve only got a one-bed apartment?” she asks suddenly, eyes widening.

“On the couch!”

“ _You made him sleep on the couch_?” She grimaces at me. “Poor form, Everdeen.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I ask, as if I didn’t practically force him into a bed with me in Caprarola.

“Let him share your bed, for fuck’s sake! Am I meant to teach the birds and the bees as well or is it just flirting you need help with? Maybe I should meet him and warn him about how inept you are at reading people and going for who and what you want.”

“You call me stubborn all the time.”

“Stubbornness is not the same as shooting your shot.”

I huff out a breath. “Whatever.”

There’s a soft rap at my bedroom door. My heart leaps.

“Is that him?” Johanna gasps. And then, louder, “Come in, lover boy! Come say hello!”

I press my phone to my stomach to muffle her voice and go to the door, cracking it open. Peeta stands on the other side, looking rumpled with sleep.

“Hey,” he rumbles. “I heard you were awake. You mind me using the bathroom?”

“Of course not,” I say, immediately stepping back. That’s a downside of this apartment—the bathroom is only accessible through the bedroom. I grimace. I hope he hasn’t been waiting for me to drag myself out of bed while I’ve just been casually chatting to Jo. “Did I wake you?” I ask as he steps past in boxers and a worn shirt with _Merchantville Wolves_ printed on the front.

“No, no,” he says. “Sorry to barge in.”

“You’re not,” I say, and he smiles at me like something is amusing to him. Then Johanna bellows _hey! I’m still here!_ and because my hand has slipped slightly her voice is loud and brash and enough for Peeta to easily hear.

“Oh, are you talking to someone?” he asks, eyebrows quirking.

“Yeah, an old friend from college,” I says, grimacing. Johanna keeps shouting like the immature twenty-seven-year-old she is.

“ _Brainless! I can here you talking to your mysterious travel buddy!”_

“You wanna say hi?” I ask, already regretting asking. Peeta drags his hand through his hair in an effort to make it more presentable, and then nods.

“Sure,” he says, clearing his throat. I lift my phone. Johanna grins like a shark.

“You can say hi to him,” I say, eyes widening with meaning, as in, _don’t tell him shit, don’t you dare_. She grins even deeper and I sigh and turn the phone until Peeta is in view.

“Hi!” he says. “I’m Peeta.”

“I’m Jo,” Johanna replies. I squint at the screen as if I’m going to find her holding a shotgun or miming a blowjob or something. “Katniss has told me a lot about you.”

“Oh jesus,” I mutter, and Peeta laughs.

“I bet she has,” he replies.

“She’s worried she’ll sound like a psychopath for inviting a stranger to stay with her.”

“Ah, well, we clarified that we both had good intentions from the start,” Peeta explains, so easy and friendly that I’m jealous. “And I promise I’m a decent guy.”

“And pretty cute, too,” Jo fires back, and Peeta’s ears go red almost immediately.

“Ah, no, the camera adds five pounds and all that…” he trails off. “I’m not the pretty one in this situation. I’m only here to cook and provide entertainment.”

I wonder if I can just roll smoothly under the bed and scream for a moment. _How? What? Why?_

Johanna snorts. “Apparently so,” she says dryly. “Anyway, lovely to meet you blondie. Look after my friend for me. You should know that I have great aim with an axe.”

Peeta doesn’t even look surprised. I suppose he thinks that my friends and I all have great aim with various weapons.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, and then Johanna peers at me and before I can even respond to her or even say goodbye, she sticks her middle finger up at me and hangs up.

In the silence that follows, I try to reconnect my brain to my mouth and Peeta chuckles.

“She’s… interesting,” he says.

“She’s a nightmare,” I groan. “Sorry about that.”

“She seems nice. It makes sense that you’re friends.”

“Does it?” I blanch, and he chuckles. “Alright, alright,” I say. “I’ll go make some breakfast. Let you… recover.”

Peeta goes into the bathroom and I to the kitchen. While I attempt to make a half-decent platter of French toast, Jo texts me.

**Jo:** _he’s cute. And that sleepy look??? Jump. On. His. Dick!!!_

**Me:** _you are the worst. The actual worse._

**Jo:** _;)))))))))_

Peeta doesn’t mention Jo or what she said about him or what he said about me. Instead we both agree that we were more tired than we thought we were and wake up over my decent French toast without talking too much. Peeta spreads his giant map across the table, almost knocking over my glass of orange juice in the process, and an hour later we’re stepping out to begin the half hour walk to the _La Galleria Nazionale._ Today is Peeta’s day entirely—I told him to pick a place he wanted to visit and that we’d go. Of course he chooses an art gallery.

“I went to the Borghese Gallery the day after you dropped me off in Rome. And then to, like ten others,” he admits. “This is the last one on my list.”

On the way there, we find an art supplies shop and he spends way too long looking at different A5-size sketchbooks.

“If I want to keep drawing and painting, I can’t lug around an easel,” he explains. He leaves with a hand-bound moleskine and a smile on his face, so I can’t really complain about the detour.

The walk to the gallery is a pleasant one, the streets just starting to fill up with people. The gallery itself is in on a wide, nondescript avenue but has two levels of steps up to a huge, grand building. Pillars hold up a roof covered in carved stone details and gargoyles, with _Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna_ inscribed across the front.

“Wow,” I say as we ascend the steps, no doubt getting in the way of a million photos of the place. “This place is amazing.”

At the top of the steps there’s a covered section with three massive doors which lead into a tall-ceilinged foyer. After paying just ten euros, we’re on free reign of the place. I follow Peeta, allowing him to be my unofficial tour guide, though if he really was a tour guide, I wouldn’t pay him for it. He spends a lot of time staring at one painting or sketching without saying anything, apparently forgetting I’m even there. So I leave him to it, more than happy to just wander around at my own separate pace and internally criticise the art. The signs are informative and easy to follow, guiding me around the gallery and contextualising the paintings and sculptures.

Peeta makes me jump at one point, coming up beside me.

“You like this one?” he asks. I gaze at the canvas. Günther Uecker’s _Spirale scura._ It’s modern, nothing I would have expected to have liked, but I’m oddly drawn to it.

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t know what it is about it… it reminds me a little of tree rings. It’s nice.”

“That’s what I like about art,” Peeta says. “Sometimes things just call you and you can’t even really explain why. It’s instinctive.”

A little while later, as I tilt my head to take in Mimmo Paladino’s _Elmo bronzo_ , I smile at Peeta’s expression.

“You call this instinctive?” I ask him.

“It’s not my cup of tea.”

I grin. “I kind of like it. It’s… conceptual.”

“You pulled that word out of thin air.”

“It’s bold,” I continue. “The, like, _lines_ and _things_.” Peeta rolls his eyes. I punch his bicep. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he says, elbowing me back.

I find a little courtyard at the centre of the gallery. It’s beautiful, filled with ivy and palms, cupping the rising sun like hands cupping water. The pocket of the blue sky above is empty of clouds. Other patrons sit on the stone benches, chatting or pointing at random parts of the building or consulting their gallery guidebooks.

A little while later, I find Peeta at Monet’s _Ninfee rosa_.

“Maybe it’s a bit cliché, but I really like Monet. Even if people do say he’s ugly up close or that he paints the same kind of things over and over.”

“So what?” I say, looking at the square-framed painting. “A million people take a photo of the Eiffel Tower every day. Doesn’t mean it isn’t cool.”

We continue on, pointing at the sculptures scattered around in the huge, airy rooms. I’ve never really understood modern sculpture, and the assortment of crushed metal or lumpy stone shapes don’t much convince me, but I spot plenty of other visitors who seem pretty enraptured. Eventually we reach a huge painting, Francesco Paolo Michetti’s _Il voto_. It stretches across the room, an oil panorama, with so much detail that I barely know where to start. The people in the painting are in the throes of religiosity, kneeling in front of a bust, some licking the ground, others holding votive candles. It feels both intensely public and private at the same time. Peeta immediately begins sketching, loose lines that become accurate studies in the blink of an eye.

“I like Michetti,” Peeta says eventually, once he’s captured everything he wants. “He was apparently a bit of a restless guy, a troublemaker. But he was a brave artist. Did a lot of portraits. I love his self-portraits. Something about them feels so honest, and somehow really modern too.” He snaps his fingers like he’s trying to remember a name. “And his mentor was… Morelli, I think? Morelli was also kind of rebellious too.”

I have little clue as to who he’s talking about, but I nod anyway. “If it’s all like this, I can see why you like it,” I say, gesturing to the painting. Peeta cringes slightly, but his eyes are gleaming.

“Sorry. This must be a bit boring for you. Especially when I start talking.”

 _I like listening to you,_ I think to myself, but instead I just joke, “It just makes me feel uncultured. It’s fine.” Peeta gives me a look.

“You’re the one who can speak Italian,” he says.

“Oh, and French,” I add, and his easy smile drops into a deadpan frown, making me laugh.

In between gallery one and gallery two, we grab some lunch and find a place to sit in the landscaped gardens of Villa Borghese. As we eat, pulling apart freshly baked crusty bread to eat with fruit and cheese and spreads, I bring up the lease. It’s been bugging me since Peeta ‘moved in’, almost as much as the rotating thoughts of kissing Peeta have been, and if I have to pick one, I suppose the former is more important right now.

“So, my lease is up in a few days,” I say. “I’m getting a train to Florence on Thursday.”

Peeta blinks across at me. He sticks a piece of bread in his mouth and chews for a moment, swallows, and then wipes his hands on his thighs.

“Oh, yeah,” he says evenly. “I was wondering about that.”

“Yeah.”

“Florence looks beautiful.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m working my way north. I have some friends who live in Switzerland and it’s about time I paid them a visit.”

I focus on cutting a slice of cheese to pair with a slice of apple rather than looking at him. I haven’t really wanted to bring this topic up, even though I knew I needed to. I know it’s important. He’ll have nowhere to go when we’ve gone our separate ways. He will obviously need time to book a place to stay at least. But bringing it up means acknowledging that our time together is running out. And I don’t want it to run out. I also don’t want to look at Peeta and see either a relative indifference about our inevitable departure from one another, or a sadness. I don’t know what would hurt more.

“You can’t stay in Rome any longer?” is all he finally says.

“I’ve been here almost four months,” I murmur. “Have to move on eventually.” I glance at him. He’s looking out across the park, nodding slightly as he thinks.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say before I can think better of it. To do so feels too honest. Too raw. Like I’m acknowledging something I maybe shouldn’t, not with a timer above our heads. “I just wanted to make sure you knew. Let’s not ruin this lovely day.”

So we change the subject. We talk about the food, the park, and then head to the next stop. We don’t talk about the lease or Florence or parting ways again.

We leave around three, Peeta practically glowing now that he’s been able to sketch to his heart’s content. I can’t help but smile at his obvious joy. I’m glad our brief discussion about parting ways hasn’t dampened our moods.

As we pull away from the building and head towards a slightly busier street, I’m not looking where I’m going, and almost step out in front of a moped speeding past. Peeta grabs my hand and pulls me back with a soft _woah_ and then just doesn’t let go. I don’t either, instead squeezing it as I tell him thanks. We keep walking. Our palms get a bit clammy but we do and say nothing about it. Electricity feels like it’s surging up my arm from where our fingers are intertwined but it doesn’t freak me out. It just makes me smile like an idiot underneath my sunhat.

A little while later, we stand at a crosswalk, waiting for the light change, and I look up and across at him. I want to kiss him. That’s what I want to do. But something stops me. Whether it’s uncertainty or anxiety or just because I know that whatever this is will end in two days—it’s enough to stop me.

We head back to my apartment after stopping to pick up some wine and a fresh baguette loaf. Peeta insists on buying some dahlias and sticks them in the only thing big enough to hold flowers—a speckled handmade water jug I find in the back of a dusty cupboard—and puts them on the balcony table. The sight of their bushy pink and orange flowers makes me think of my mother, named after them, but apart from a brief spark of sorrow in my chest, it just makes me happy to see them.

While he cooks, Peeta plays some music after deeming mine too niche but I sneak in some tracks of my own anyway and follow him on Spotify. I chop and dice and slice whatever he tells me to, as well as pour copious amounts of wine. It’s easy and I can’t help but smile simply by being around him. We talk about our day and about the art and while a pot bubbles on the stove, Dean Martin’s _Volare_ begins playing over the speakers, and Peeta clutches his hand to his chest.

“Oh, come _on,_ ” he swoons, crooning enthusiastically into an invisible microphone.

“Just because a couple of his songs are in Italian,” I say. “This is so cheesy.”

“Translate for me, then, if you’re going to be snob.”

My mouth drops open. “You don’t deserve my help.”

Peeta sticks his hand out with an innocent smile.

“Hey, when in Rome,” he says, heartfelt, and my treacherous mind immediately reminds me of the context in which Johanna said the same thing. “Will you do me the honour?” he asks, and I roll my eyes but take his hand anyway.

“You better not stand on my feet again,” I warn as our hands clasp or settle on hips and waists.

“That was like, once,” he protests. “Unless you want me to put on some Vengaboys or something and really get my dance on?”

I snort. “Maybe another time,” I say, before realising that time is exactly what we don’t have. If I want something, I better grab it. Peeta’s easy smile slips slightly.

“I’ve had a really good few days with you,” he says quietly, like it’s taken no small amount of bravery to say it. I force myself not to deflect, to say what I want to say, what is honest.

“Me too,” I murmur. We sway around the kitchen, bare feet moving silently over the tiles. “I’m glad you’re here, Peeta.”

Peeta smiles and it lights up his whole face. “You are?”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing self-consciously. “You’re surprised?”

“If I say no will it make me sound like a dick?”

I snort. “No.”

“Good. Then no, I’m not surprised. I just…” he trails off, pushes me effortlessly into a spin. “I just haven’t had this good of a time with someone for a long time. Travelling has been fun but it’s a bit lonely sometimes.”

I think of the countless days I’ve spent alone, driving or walking or cycling, sometimes, through cities and towns, through mountains and valleys, along rivers and deep into forests. At no point did I feel lonely. I enjoyed being alone. But perhaps I’ve had enough of _alone_. I’m not done grieving and working through everything that drove me away from Panem in the first place, but I’m done with being alone.

And isn’t that a kick in the teeth? The one person I’d be more than happy to stay with is only going to be here for one more day.

“I know what you mean,” I say carefully. I say it to the collar of his shirt and then force myself to look up and meet his baby blues. “It can be fun. It has been fun. But I’d forgotten how nice it is to have someone to walk around with. I mean, I wouldn’t have known anything about the art today.”

“And you would’ve been hit by that moped,” he adds.

“Yes, I would’ve,” I say. “Thanks for saving me.”

“Any time.”

The song ends, and shifts to _The Test of Time_ instead. It’s a nice song but, god, could there be any album worse to dance to right now than this one? It’s literally about _time_. I peer at Peeta briefly. He’s mouthing the words.

“How much Dean Martin have you got on there?” I ask, and he blinks down at me.

“A fair bit. When it’s Christmas time, he’s constantly playing. That and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole.”

“No Wham!?” I ask.

“Obviously. And Mariah. And I know all the words to _My Only Wish (This Year)_.”

“Britney?” I ask, laughing before I can help it.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Peeta exclaims. “It’s a great song!”

“I never said it wasn’t!”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Hey, knowing the words to Britney Spears is _not_ a rare talent,” I protest. Peeta grins. I shake my head. He opens his mouth to say something more and then the pot on the stove begins to bubble over, and we break apart. I sort of stand there adrift for a second while Peeta lifts the pot lid and curses, turning down the heat.

“Is it okay?” I ask, grabbing my wine and taking a bracing sip.

“Yeah,” Peeta says. “But now there’s just a big mess.”

“By all means make more of a mess,” I say dryly, leaning against the counter. “You cook, I clean.”

“Oh, you’re so hard done by,” he retorts. I bite my bottom lip to hide the huge smile that threatens to overtake my face and make me look like an idiot.

 _The Look_ starts to play and Peeta sort of gasps and gives me what I’m sure he means to be a sexy look and moves his hips like he’s a salsa dancer or something. I laugh to hide the fact that it actually does something for me.

“You’re earning room and board by cooking, not whatever that was,” I scold, but he’s already stuck a wooden spoon in his mouth like it’s a rose and is waggling his eyebrows as he sashays in a tight circle in the middle of the kitchen. I grab my phone and take a photo.

“I’m never deleting that,” I say, laughing, and Peeta grins.

“Admit it, you’re impressed,” he says, and I say nothing. He scoffs. “I can put on _Buona Sera_ next if you want, really show my classical training.”

“No thanks,” I say. “That’s enough for one evening.”

We sit on the balcony to eat. It’s a habit by now, and I can’t help but think of how domestic it all feels. It feels right to sit opposite him. It was easy to work beside him in that tiny kitchen. To dance with him. It was nice. More than nice. It’s perfect.

I wake with a start at 2am. It’s blue-dark in my room, a faint streetlight glowing yellow through the blinds, everything quiet and still. It’s a marked contrast to my racing heart and the dregs of a nightmare that are running through my mind in jagged flashes.

“Fuck,” I murmur to myself, rubbing my eyes. I haven’t had a nightmare in a while now. I try to figure out what could have triggered it. Maybe it was the church, the dahlias, or some supressed memory of seeing my parents slow-dancing in our kitchen when I was a kid that’s been dragged back into my mind. All I know is that I want to forget about it. I want to grab a glass of water and then go back to sleep.

So I kick off the blankets and creak the door open into the living area. I peer through the gloom at the couch as I tiptoe past, but it’s empty. I continue to the kitchen and spot the open balcony doors, gauzy curtains rippling in the faint breeze. I fill a glass, chug half of it, and then head for the doors, pushing through the curtains which feel like silk against my fingers.

What I see on the balcony makes my heart do something complicated. Peeta stands there, shirtless, leaning on his elbows against the railing, lost in thought as he stares out into the silent street. His hair glows white in the moonlight. The only sounds come from elsewhere in the city: traffic, errant voices, a faint thread of music, somewhere. But in this street, it’s muted, lit by faint lamps and a flickering store light way down at the corner.

“Peeta?” I say, keeping my voice soft. He jumps anyway, jerking around.

“Jesus,” he exhales. “I didn’t even hear you.”

“Sorry,” I say, and he shakes his head. He stifles a yawn. “Can’t sleep?” I ask.

“Couldn’t last night either,” he murmurs. “Sometimes I can be a bit of an insomniac.”

I furrow my brow. My glass of water feels icy and damp against my hand. He must be uncomfortable on the couch. It’s fine to sit on but it’s never been comfy enough to make me fall asleep on it. And after a few days of walking miles around Rome in the sun, the last thing you want is a poor night’s sleep.

 _Stop making up reasons_ , says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Johanna. God, she’d have a field day if she knew what had happened yesterday. What was happening right now.

I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

“Come on,” I say, holding out my hand. Peeta looks at it for a brief moment, his eyes pitch black, and then he takes it. I lead him out and he stops briefly to latch the doors shut again, and then I pull him into my bedroom.

“Katniss…” he says.

“I’m okay with it if you are,” I say. He considers, nods.

“I’m okay with it.”

I go and put my glass on the nightstand while he shuts the door. Then we get into bed. There’s no hesitation, no bumping of limbs. We just lie down and I pull up the sheets around us and take his hand and then it’s just the sound of my ticking watch and our inhales and exhales.

“I had a nightmare,” I whisper after a moment. He shifts, looking at me. His eyes glitter in the dark.

“About what?”

I turn on my side to face him. “My dad.”

“You usually have nightmares about him?”

“Yes. Him the most. About what happened to him.”

“What happened?” he asks.

“He was a labourer. Died at work.”

He nods. I bite my lip.

“I have nightmares about my mom,” he says eventually. He sounds small. I feel small. At least beside him I don’t feel overwhelmed by it. “For different reasons than you, but still. It’s not fun to have nightmares about a parent.”

“No,” I reply. It isn’t. I almost expect him to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead, we just lie there, and maybe I fall asleep first, or maybe he does, but when I do, it’s deep, comfortable, free of dreams.

The next morning, we wake around about the same time thanks to my alarm and find that we’re pressed close together. I untangle my legs from his and shift over slightly, heart pounding.

“Sorry,” Peeta mumbles. “I tend to hog the sheets.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I run hot.”

We lie there, and then Peeta groans and sits up. “Well,” he says. His hair sticks up all over his head. “I’ll get started on breakfast.”

He gets up and leaves the room. I lie there and stare at the ceiling and think about how well-rested I feel, better than I normally would after a nightmare.

Over breakfast, we’re quiet. I can tell he’s thinking about something by how he twirls his fork through his food instead of diving in.

“I don’t—I don’t want you to feel like I’m expecting something,” he blurts out eventually, surprising me. He gives me this very intense eye contact and I can’t look away. “I know women have to deal with assholes like that, who expect like, sex or something. I don’t want you to think that I’m going to try anything.”

Perhaps it’s telling that the first thing I think about is that he barely has the time to try anything in the first place.

I have to take thirty seconds and a gulp of orange juice before I can answer.

“I’m the one who invited you in,” I say. “Not that that’s an excuse or anything. But, like…” I shake my head. “I’ve never thought that about you. Not for one second.” He looks visibly relieved. I furrow my brow. “Just so you know, I don’t expect anything either,” I add. “Not even the cooking or anything.”

He laughs and then catches himself like he’s realising it’s a fair point to make. “I don’t mind cooking, really. I enjoy it.”

“I never suggested you pay for lodging or anything. I would have if it mattered to me. It’s fine.”

“I know. Still...” He shrugs. We go back to eating, and he properly finishes his food this time. When I push my plate away, I raise my eyebrows and boldly say, “But if you want me to treat you like you’re a house husband, by all means, say something. I’m more than happy not to cook or clean ever again.”

This makes him laugh, loud and echoing, the sound filling my chest. His ears go red. “I didn’t realise we were that serious.”

I gesture around with my fork. “Oh, you forgot this is a honeymoon?” I ask, and he grins into his fist.

After another minute, I strike up the courage to tell him something truthful.

“It’s not a big deal, Peeta. Sleeping in the same bed. I sleep better next to you anyway.”

He looks at me with such a meaningful expression that it makes my heart hurt a little.

“Okay,” he says. “I just wanted to be sure you were comfortable.”

“More than comfortable.”

“I slept much better last night too.”

“Good,” I say. If he isn’t going to bring up that he mentioned his mom, I’m not going to mention my nightmare about my dad.

“Good,” he repeats, and I kick him lightly under the table. “What?” he protests. “Or should I bring up the fact that you forced me to share a bed with you like twelve hours after meeting me?”

I hide my eyes with my hand, pursing my lips, and he laughs.

“I’m alluring, I get it,” he boasts.

“Oh my god,” I groan, and his laugh fills me all the way down to my toes.

We spend our final full day in Rome being disgustingly touristy. We get caricatures done. We get cheap food that’s greasy and salty and cloyingly sweet. We take photos at all the nice but overhyped tourist hot spots. I spy a face painting stall in one square that’s got various customers queuing who are all under the age of ten and Peeta drags us over before I can talk him out of it.

“What are you going to get?” I ask as he scans through the catalogue of options to choose from on the stall’s sign. The face painters and children’s parents eye us with a mix of suspicion and amusement.

“Shall I go for a full-face tiger?” Peeta considers, pointing at the image. “Or maybe the mermaid look?”

“I will leave you here alone at this stall full of children if you get your entire face painted,” I say. “And it’s unfair to make them use that much paint on your giant moon face.”

“Hey, they’d be honoured to paint someone as cute as me,” he fires back, and I look up at him and grin while he keeps figuring out which design he wants.

We manage to get seated at the same time, and ten minutes later, we’re paying and revealing our respective choices. I’ve gone for some tasteful if vanilla flowers across my cheek, while Peeta has some bold design with lots of straight lines and the colours of the Italian flag over his tanned skin, covering his right temple and down to his jaw.

“What do you think?” he asks. “You look great.”

“You look great too,” I say, only mildly sarcastically. “Are you happy now?”

“More than happy,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Let me get a photo.”

Three dual selfies later, he sends the best one to me. I beam at the image. We look like idiots but I know it’s the happiest I’ve been for a good while. I never would have done this with anyone else.

I send the picture to Jo. Within five minutes she’s replied.

**Jo:** _jfc Christ brainless. You’re a couple already_

**Me:** _I’m leaving rome tomorrow. He insisted we make the most of what it has to offer… apparently that involves face painting_

**Jo:** _it looks good_

**Me:** _don’t be mean_

**Jo:** _I’m not!!_

**Jo:** _just so u know im saving all these pictures to show at your wedding one day._

**Me:** _did you not hear about me leaving rome without him?_

We get some odd looks as we go about the rest of our day with painted faces, but I forget all about it before long. We wander rather aimlessly around a flea market and peruse an equal mix of cheap junk and reasonable deals, picking up nothing but taking in a whole bunch of random items, from jewellery to framed paintings to furniture that looks like it’s come directly out of someone’s home. Finally we get dinner at a fancy but not wildly overpriced restaurant, filling up on pasta, finishing up with fresh gelato and a slow walk back to my apartment along the river.

Neither of us mention that tomorrow morning, I’ll be on a train headed to Florence, and Peeta will be staying in Rome for a little longer, I assume, until moving on to wherever he’s planning on visiting next. I’ve already given my recommendations of the best places to go in the rest of the city, and if he’s not going to bring up tomorrow now, I’m not going to either.

It’s inescapable when we get back to my place. I need to pack my bags and do some basic first checks of the apartment so I’m not rushing around tomorrow trying to make sure I’ve left everything as I found it, and Peeta needs to make sure he can fit everything back into his rucksack. For an hour or so, we’re in separate rooms but occupied enough, and then we drift back into the kitchen and living space. We finish off the wine and chat easily over some random film playing on the TV. And finally, when it’s time for bed, we brush our teeth side by side and get under the covers without another word about it.

I can sense as we lie there in the dark that we’re actually both highly aware of the situation we’ve found ourselves so easily slipping into and how it’s slipping out of our grasp whether we like it or not.

I fall asleep at a respectful distance but end up migrating towards him across the mattress, twisting under the sheets until I’m half on top of him. When I wake up, I don’t pull away, jut closing my eyes and dosing again, so deeply comfortable in his presence and not wanting it to end. This is it. We have but three hours left together now. I don’t want to spend it embarrassed or regretful or awkward.

“I had a dream—” Peeta begins with a start, eyes bleary, clearly on a different realm than I currently am, lying there with him thinking about how nice it would be to just stay in this moment forever. “—and I was in a cave and there were frogs on typewriters,” he finishes. Yeah, a completely different realm altogether. He seems so puzzled and yet intrigued by the concept that I can’t help but laugh as I peel myself away from him and tell myself to get over it.

“I don’t know how to decipher that,” I tell him, swinging my legs over the mattress, and he grumbles unintelligibly, scrubbing his face with his hands. “But you try and wake up, and I’ll get breakfast.”

In the bathroom, I pull on a skirt and a nice shirt and some flip-flops and grab my keys and purse and dart out of the apartment before I can do something stupid like tell Peeta how I’m really feeling about him or cry, for fuck’s sake. As if it’s fair to burden him with that.

The walk to get coffee is enough time to chill myself out. I could have gotten it from the kitchen, but I need a minute alone to get my head back on before I make today any worse than it will already be. I can’t even enjoy the fact that I get to walk back through the warming morning air and find Peeta at the apartment, that I’m about to travel to an entirely new city. All I can focus on is that soon enough, I might not see him again.

Coffee, tea, and pastries in hand, I walk back and spot him stood out on the balcony. The curtains are fluttering out behind him, caught in the breeze, and he’s looking the other way down the street, so I’m able to just observe him. Spy the buttery hue of his tanned skin, the expanse of his shoulders since he’s shirtless and leaning against the railing on his elbows. It’s an inversion of that night two days ago. I’m not battling against memories of a horrible dream, and he’s not exhausted from not getting enough sleep. Instead of moonlight and shadow he’s sunlight and a golden glow.

I enter the apartment building and on the walk up the spiral steps I give myself a stern talking to.

 _Don’t be weird_ , I say to myself. _Don’t make this into something it isn’t_.

We eat on the balcony, of course. Peeta is back looking at his map. Halfway through a croissant he frowns and says, “Did I tell you about my frog dream?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “They were on typewriters.”

He blinks rapidly. “It was so weird.”

I smile at him. “Weird,” I echo.

After breakfast, I double-check my packing even though I’m pretty much a pro by this point, and then Peeta helps me do a quick clean of the place. The dahlias are still happy in their jug, so I refresh the water and leave them on the counter for the host to decide what to do with. I check my train, update Jo and Gale and Madge on my day of planned travel. And then suddenly it’s time to leave the apartment.

Peeta carries one of my bags for me down the steps, while I lock up and stick the keys through the otherwise useless letterbox. A burst of nostalgia rolls through me as I stand in front of the narrow wooden door. This was a good place. I’m sad to leave it.

Peeta insists on coming with me to the train station. I have a bit of time, so I get another coffee once we arrive, and we sit on the platform together to wait.

“Your train is at ten, right?” he asks.

“Yep,” I say. “Ten.”

He nods. I sip my coffee.

“Send me pictures of Florence,” he says after a few quiet minutes. “Don’t be a stranger, you know?”

My chest aches. “Sure,” I say. “I won’t. I promise.” He smiles at me. _I want to kiss you,_ I think. “Send me pictures too,” I tell him. “Tell me what you’re gonna do next in Rome.”

He nods, looking down at his hands.

At quarter to the hour, I’m on the verge of insisting Peeta not wait any longer, to get on with his day, if only because I can’t bare these last torturous minutes. I know I’m being ridiculous. Melodramatic about a guy and a situation that is really only in my head. Peeta hasn’t made a move. Peeta hasn’t said anything about liking me. Imagine if I’d said something and he’d said _I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel that way._ What then? I’d be grateful for the train if that happened. I couldn’t have escaped quickly enough.

At ten to ten, the platform announcement comes in to inform of the incoming train. Peeta and I both look up at the same time and then at each other. He smiles briefly at me. I smile back. Then he stands up, leaving his bag, and goes to crane his neck at the train timetable. Thirty seconds he comes back, looking a bit wild-eyed.

He comes to a stop in front of me. “I want to come with you,” he says.

I open and close my mouth for three seconds. “What?”

“I want to come with you,” he repeats.

After another three seconds in which my brain buffers, I splutter, “To Florence? But what about your plans? I thought you wanted to go to Sicily and Naples?”

“They’re not going anywhere. I want to come with you.”

My heart races. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I had thought about this possibility. Peeta joining me on my trip. Never leaving his side. Making this… this _thing_ into more. Not letting it end.

“But why?” I ask, stupidly.

His brows draw together into an earnest expression. “I think I’d miss you too much.”

Now, I’ve never been a romantic. Or I never thought I was. I’d grown up with the wonderful romance that was my parents, but I never assumed that was for me. That I’d ever get that, experience that. No one paid me any attention in high school and college was a disappointment in the relationship department. I’ll admit that by the ripe old age of twenty two I was pretty sure I was never going to find love or love anyone like I’d seen in the movies or in books.

I never even thought I’d get that fluttery feeling people talk about. Or really get how people could swoon. But when Peeta says _that_ … I feel it all through my body. And it’s not even romance. If anything, it’s an uncomfortably intense crush that I should probably get over but just can’t quite manage to shake.

I’d miss him too. It would hurt. Maybe I’d get over it, but it would settle inside me forever, I think, a missed connection, a door left ajar, letting in the _what if_ ’s and regrets.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Peeta asks, looking a little wary. My silence must have made him think that I was figuring out how to say _thanks, but no thanks_.

“Yes,” I say, and maybe I’m hallucinating but he looks pretty damn relieved. “Of course I do, Peeta.”

“Good,” he says. “You and me, Florence—it’s a yes?”

“It’s a yes,” I beam. I feel a rush of gratitude all of a sudden and then I’m hugging him tight and he lifts me slightly off the ground and crushes me against him and I smell him and feel him around me, against me, and laugh.

“You seriously want to come with me?” I ask when we pull apart. He fixes me with a serious look, squeezing the hand I didn’t even realise was in his.

“Always, Katniss,” he says, some magic words if I’ve ever heard any. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources:  
> [Günther Uecker](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.9167265,12.4828291,2a,75y,206.49h,94.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCGIRCc39afVXdS4WCmoQDw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)  
> [Mimmo Paladino](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.9167832,12.4825565,2a,75y,318.09h,80.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1shTdL-N5PRaA0SV4KfrQWtQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)  
> [Claude Monet](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.9171381,12.4829781,2a,75y,22.31h,80.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYEuXSpdfgbJS495Uu1j2fg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)  
> [Francesco Paolo Michetti](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.9168,12.4825695,2a,75y,211.75h,98.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJu5g_lOaazKmf8Dvv1svYA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)  
> [Museum courtyard](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.917294,12.4823541,2a,75y,6.52h,103.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJ3GreLmgByxENaIYsF7h9A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)  
> [Dean Martin](https://open.spotify.com/album/7dfnxOYh1XR9AKqCcGckGX?si=zdngMDEDQPSmjvv7O9CdaQ)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your lovely comments here and the wonderful response on tumblr! Nice long chapter for you all… plenty of sightseeing and ~emotions~ all culminating in some smut.
> 
> Soundtrack: ... anything smutty tbh

**{4} Florence**

“Well, shit,” Peeta says, glancing at the time. “I need a ticket.”

“Shit,” I say, looking around for a booth.

It’s a bit of a mad last-minute rush then, with Peeta saying he wants to come with me, my agreement that I don’t want to leave without him, and the panic-buying of a ticket. The teller seems to be intent on going as slow as possible but we do manage to grab a ticket and sprint back down the platform to the correct train, boarding barely ten seconds before the doors close. We find a spot where we can sit together, stow our bags above our heads, and try to catch our breath as the train pulls out of the station.

My brain feels like it’s struggling to catch up.

_Peeta is coming with me._

I look across at him as he fiddles with his ticket.

 _Peeta is coming with me_.

A big smile crests over my face and I have to look away and out of the window instead to try and stop myself looking idiotic. But I can’t help it. He’s coming with me. There’s no farewell, no sad journey up to Florence where I knew I’d be thinking about him, no sporadic texts which would probably fade over time, and then nothing but fond memories of a connection I lost.

“So that was Rome, huh?” he says, his smooth voice jolting me out of my head. I look back at him.

“Yeah,” I reply. “What’d you think?”

“I got to meet up with my old friends, eat amazing food, and I got to see you again,” he shrugs. “Can’t think of anything better.”

I smile at him. “What about Rome itself? Hasn’t the city stuck in your mind?”

He blinks owlishly at me. “What city?” he asks, and I roll my eyes and smile even more, my cheeks aching.

As Rome vanishes and the Italian countryside begins to blur past us, we set about organising ourselves now that we have decided so suddenly to keep travelling together. I’ve thankfully not booked a hotel yet, so there’s no need to change reservations to add an extra person, but having Peeta alongside me, although not at all a burden, means I need to consider what he would like to do in Florence alongside my own plans.

“I’m having to rethink everything because of you,” I say, and he furrows his brow.

“Have I completely ruined it?” he asks, and I shake my head.

“Not at all. I just didn’t expect anyone to be coming with me. I have to think about what you want now.”

“Face painting again?” he asks, and I give him an unimpressed look that makes him grin. “We looked cute, you have to admit,” he counters.

“No comment,” I scowl, before gesturing to my guidebook. “Decide if there’s anywhere you want to go.”

We bury ourselves in our phones or guidebooks or maps, establishing our plan of action for Florence. We’ll only have a little while there after all, and there’s a lot to see.

“I don’t mind lazing around,” Peeta says. “Like, if one day you just want to walk around and then sit and eat all day I am totally for that.”

“I’ll note it down,” I say, adding it to my list. _Lazy day_. I can’t say it’s something I wouldn’t look forward to. In Rome I had the luxury of doing so in my own apartment. On some days, when I was just exhausted or not willing to face the crowds or the heat, I’d sleep in late, grab breakfast from the nearby deli, and then just chill at the apartment. I miss the place already.

For the rest of the journey, we point out destinations to visit, things to do. My excitement builds and builds the more I look up information about places to stay and activities with which to fill our time, knowing that I’ll get to share it all with Peeta. I switch between scrolling through travel websites and sitting and staring out of the window, taking in the sights, and he sketches random people on the train or captures brief moments as the train thunders along.

“Hey, Pisa is only like, an hour’s train ride from Florence, and I promised my friends I’d go and take a picture with the Tower itself,” I say after a few moments of silence. “You wanna visit Pisa too, while we’re close?”

“Absolutely,” Peeta says. “But only if you take a picture of me too.”

“You’re gonna do that ‘leaning’ pose?” I ask.

“What else would I do?” he replies, squinting at me like I’ve asked a truly stupid question.

“We’re gonna have a busy few days,” I say, and he smiles.

“Good. I really don’t want to be forced into extended conversation with you when we get bored.”

“You just said you wouldn’t mind a lazy day,” I deadpan, and he shrugs like he’s never heard of the phrase.

The rest of the journey is peaceful and comfortable and I arrive in Florence feeling like the world is at my feet. Navigating out of the station, we make our way to a hotel I found online. It’s a sweet little place just outside of the city centre, nice but not crazy-expensive. Given that we’re only going to be here for a few days, and spending most of it out and about across the city, it doesn’t matter that we don’t have the ease of relaxed living that you get in an apartment.

“It does mean that someone else does the laundry though,” Peeta argues as we climb the steps, which I concede is a very good point indeed.

We check in at the front desk.

“May I assist you with your luggage?” asks the concierge.

“Thank you, but we can manage,” I say, handing Peeta one of my bags since he only has his backpack. He takes it without hesitation, I grab our keys, and then we take the elevator up to the twelfth floor and unlock our room.

“This is nice,” Peeta says from behind me as we crowd in. It’s spacious enough for two, with a small but functional bathroom, a tiny little kettle set-up off to the side, and even a balcony. Although the balcony isn’t big enough for a table, I’m glad there is one, so I can go and stand out there and no feel confined to the room.

And right at centre stage is the bed. Singular. A king with huge pillows and luxurious downy sheets. I glance at Peeta. He smiles at me. I smile back, feeling that something heated blooming in my chest. No questions asked, we’re sharing this bed. It wasn’t even a consideration to take into account. If I want to enjoy may stay in Florence, I need to be well-rested after all, and beside Peeta, I’ve never slept better.

“Bagsy this side,” he says, dumping his backpack at the base of the bed and then flopping down on the side closest to the window.

“You’re so immature,” I joke, and he pulls a face. “You’re leaving me to get attacked by someone coming in through the door while you escape out of the window, aren’t you?”

“Uh, _no_ ,” he drawls. “I’m _hiding_ on the balcony while you defend my honour.”

I have to look away and pretend I’m busy with my bags so he doesn’t see another of my stupid smiles. We spend half an hour unpacking and checking the room—Peeta assures me the shower has ‘sufficient jets’ and I assure him that the room service menu is ‘pretty good on paper’—and then we figure out our first stop of the day.

“Lunch,” I say. “I’m famished.”

It’s almost one p.m. and for my first day in Florence, like with most places I visit, I like to walk around the location and get a feel for it, and scope out at least one good place to eat. So we grab our things, pull on some shoes, slather on sunscreen, and step out into the city.

It’s a warm day, blue skies filled with fluffy clouds, the streets of Florence hustling and bustling. It’s a beautiful city, nestled in the basin of sloping hills, along the Arno River, spanning which are a multitude of medieval bridges. All the buildings of course hold that charming majesty that only Europe can truly capture.

“Admit it,” Peeta says, when I stop to gaze at the sight of the pale brick and bold rusted-red roof tiles of a city nestled amidst mountains. “You’re a massive Europhile.”

“And?” I retort. “You’re a massive art… phile.”

He squints at me. “That’s just called _being_ _cool_ ,” he says, and I scoff.

We locate the Florence cathedral. It stands grand above the rest of the city. Coming from Panem, I’m used to not having skyscrapers or really tall buildings around me, and they’re so few and far between in most of the European cities I’ve visited, the streets often still capturing at least some of the history held within them, that cathedral is truly a sight to see with its tower and dome.

We find a nice sunny spot at a nearby café and order lunch, and while we wait for the food, we sit and people-watch.

“Florence is apparently ranked within the top fifteen fashion capitals of the world,” Peeta reads from his phone.

“Oh yeah?” I ask, watching a man walking past in socks, sandals, slacks, and a stained t-shirt. “What are the other fourteen?”

“Paris, Milan, the usual,” Peeta says. “Oh, and would you believe it, Merchantville, Panem! What are the odds?”

I look at him from across the table. “I have never seen you in anything but an old button down and cargo shorts.”

“I have a limited wardrobe!” he exclaims. “Besides, my shorts have pockets—I thought girls lost their damn minds over pockets.”

“We do!” I reply with equal gusto. I pat at the dress I’m wearing and pull at the pockets at the hips. “See? Most dresses don’t have anything—these I can even fit my entire hand in.”

“And yet I don’t see Seamtown on that list…” Peeta peers at his phone. “Nope. Nothing to say except that it’s filled with coal, corn, and churches.”

“The three essential C’s,” I shrug. “What can I say, we have it all.”

The food is of course delicious, and conversation flows easily. We talk more about our plans for our stay. We have more than enough days to see the city itself even though we’re going to be going west for at least one of them to see Pisa. Still, Peeta tells me that there’s _never enough time for exploring the cradle of renaissance culture, Katniss_.

“I’m more than ready for some fancy buildings, fancy paintings, and fancy carbs,” I say after lunch, doing a little dance as we walk towards Ponte Vecchio, a medieval bridge filled with little shops. I sigh. “There’s too much to do and not enough time to do it in.”

“We can always stay longer or come back,” Peeta says easily. “I’d happily come back to Italy, you know? Go off the beaten track a little.”

“You like to hike?” I ask.

“As long as I don’t have to eat leaves or wash in a river, I love it,” he says. “I take you’re a bit of a pro?”

“I used to camp in the mountains for days on end with my dad,” I shrug. “I’ve hiked a few times through Italy but I’d love to camp, sleep under the stars and all that.”

“Then we’ll have to come back,” he says. “We’ll visit some art first, and then disappear into the mountains for a few days.”

He says it like it’s nothing, like it’s a forgone conclusion, and with a spark of warmth in my chest, I let myself wonder if it could be. If we could come back, at some point. Both of us. He’s talking about it as if he has plans to stick around even after Florence, after Italy, even. He’s talking about coming back _with_ me.

“That would be nice,” I murmur, smiling at the thought even though my heart is racing. Peeta beams at me, seemingly unaware of my inner monologue.

“We have an afternoon to kill, so why don’t we check off some of the hotspots first. I don’t know about you, but I’m always ready to stand in a piazza.”

“Alright,” I say, my smile growing. “Lead the way.”

And that’s how we spend the next three hours, trailing through Florence in the afternoon sun, stopping only for refreshments or photos or to browse little shops. The city is truly stunning, filled with medieval and roman architecture. It still feels Italian, but it’s not like Rome, with its arches and colosseum. It’s a big city, but it feels smaller, somehow.

We visit Piazza della Signoria and marvel at the medieval feel to the place. It’s busy, somehow more so than Rome, but I find I don’t mind one bit. We head into Palazzo Vecchio since it’s right there and it turns out to be the fanciest town hall I’ve ever seen. Peeta gazes with literal heart eyes at the frescos while I get a crick in my neck looking at the architecture, the fleur-de-lys on the ceilings, the murals on the walls.

“It’s just so…” I say, gesturing in awe.

“I get what you’re saying,” Peeta agrees. “I one hundred percent understand.”

I pull him away from the Uffizi Gallery with promises to return.

“You’ll need longer there than half an hour,” I reason, and he relents, but looks back at the building and the magnificent archways repeatedly until it’s out of sight.

Nearby is Piazza del Duomo, which is so beautiful and magnificent that the buildings look superimposed, including the Florence Cathedral itself. Peeta doesn’t need to worry that I might be getting sick of just looking at fancy buildings and old renaissance art—I just can’t get enough of seeing the grandeur and history of the place. I must have my mouth open for most of the afternoon.

By the evening, my feet hurt and a day that began with the sorrow of almost saying goodbye to Peeta, then cross-country travel, and then an afternoon of walking around and gazing at everything around me, ends with me wanting carbs, wine, and a nice view.

“Well, you have one out of the three,” Peeta jokes, putting his fist under his chin and giving an angelic expression.

“You’re right about that,” I say, looking out from the restaurant we’re at to gaze at the river. Dusk is falling, the sun drowning in a burst of orange against the massive night sky. Just as much as I like to be close by woodlands and mountains, I like to have a nice body of water nearby, and now I get to watch amber and gold lights sparkle over the river and feel utterly at peace while I eat some good food.

“Have you had a good day so far?” I ask Peeta after we toast the city with our drinks.

“I’m overwhelmed by it all,” he admits, shifting in his seat. Under the table, our feet brush. I don’t pull away, and neither does he, and we maintain eye contact as he says, “I’m really glad I’m here with you, Katniss.”

I have to take a breath before answering. “Me too,” I murmur.

“Tell me more about yourself,” he says after a few beats.

“What?” I ask, surprised at the sudden turn in conversation.

Peeta reclines back in his chair and shrugs, his hair flopping down over his forehead. All I want to do is push my hand through it, feel how soft it is, be close enough to him to do it in the first place.

“I mean, we’ve known each other for a week now, and we’re going to be hanging out for a while longer, but I feel like I barely know anything about you,” he says. “Tell me… your favourite colour.”

“Green,” I say. “What about you?”

“Orange. Not traffic-cone orange. Soft, like a sunset.”

“Like this?” I ask, looking across the river.

“Just like this,” he agrees.

“Okay… what about your… favourite place in Panem?”

He furrows his brow as he thinks and he only answers after the food has arrived and we’ve started to eat.

“My father had a bakery,” he says. “It was small, family-run, passed down from his dad. It was really important to him. I wasn’t there as much as I would have liked but whenever I _was_ there, it felt like home. The smell of bread and cakes, the sound of the ovens or mixers. I used to decorate cakes sometimes, or use those glass markers and draw festive pictures on the windows for each season.”

I smile at the thought. “Do you think you’ll take the bakery over? Or will your brothers?”

“Ah,” Peeta says, focusing on his plate. “Well, it’s not there waiting for me, that’s for sure.”

“Do you want to be an artist?” I ask. “You’re definitely talented enough. I can see your work being in galleries someday.”

“Thanks,” he says, mouth quirking into a self-conscious smile. “I mean, that would be the dream, yeah. But we’ll see. At the moment I’m just playing everything by ear. I’m able to travel and I’m not too eager to rush into anything just yet.”

“I know how you feel,” I say. “I went to college and all the way through they were talking about how swiftly I had to move to get a job. As if there was nothing else I could do first, if I wanted to. Granted, the only reason I’m out here in the first place is because things didn’t go as planned back home, but yeah. I agree with you in not wanting to rush into anything.”

He nods. “Do you want to go back to Panem? Do you miss it?”

“I do. It was home, you know? But there’s a lot of memories there that are a bit painful, and Panem itself… it’s not quite what I have in mind for the rest of my life.”

“You want more hustle and bustle?”

“I want _any_ hustle and bustle.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckles. “What’d you go to college for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“We’re spilling our secrets, aren’t we?” I reply. “I went to Panem State. Majored in Environmental Science, minored in Italian.”

“Oh, wow,” Peeta says, eyes widening. “Environmental Science? That’s so cool.”

“Thanks,” I say. “It was hard work.”

“I bet. That’s why you cheated and took a language you’re already fluent in, right?”

I shoot him a look. He smirks into his drink.

“It’s not _cheating_ ,” I say. “I had plenty to learn.”

Peeta looks unconvinced, eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’m sure you did.”

“Have you gone to college?” I ask.

“I dropped out after two years,” Peeta says. “I had a wrestling scholarship and then couldn’t afford to stay.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He waves his hand. “It’s water under the bridge, honestly. I wasn’t happy there, wasn’t really studying what I wanted to do anyway.”

“What did you study?”

He grimaces. “Accounting. But I wanted to study Fine Art.”

“Difficult for getting jobs, I bet?”

“Slightly.” He pulls a face. “Hate to say that my mother was right about it not being great for employment prospects, but…” He lifts his glass of wine. “Hey, I’m in Italy though, so I guess something worked out in the end.”

I lift an eyebrow, sensing some animosity between Peeta and his mom and deciding not to press. Instead, I ask, “So, how has a poor artist financed a trip around Italy?”

Peeta drains his glass. “Ah,” he says. “Came into some money unexpectedly.”

“Sounds suspicious.”

“I’ll never tell,” he grins, but it doesn’t exactly meet his eyes. I don’t have time to change the subject, because he ploughs on by asking, “How’d you learn so many languages?” as he pours some more wine.

“It’s only Italian and French,” I shrug, and laughs sarcastically.

“That’s what everyone who can speak more than English says. I can barely even speak English sometimes and my only knowledge of Spanish is from high school… so basically nothing.”

“My dad was Italian, and he and my mom spoke it a lot. It was important to him that we could speak to his mom. She passed when I was little but we still kept it up. I think it reminded him of home.”

“And what about French?”

“Started learning it in high school, just never stopped. It was fun to me.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Italian.”

“It’s sexier.”

“Sexier than French?”

“Totally. That’s the language of love. Italian is the language of sex and culture.”

I feel my face beginning to burn at his words, as if the word _sex_ on his lips is some kind of shock to my apparently prudish system. Considering that I’ve been sleeping in the same bed as him for almost the entire time I’ve known him, and that I’ve wanted nothing more than to feel him above me, to feel his hands on me, to kiss him… him saying the word _sex_ really shouldn’t do it for me, but apparently it does. The undercurrent of tension that’s been running between us is absolutely dizzying.

“Fair enough,” I shrug, trying to playing it cool. And then I speak before I can think better of it, and it sounds flirtier than I consciously intend. “Well, if we’re talking about sexy things, let me tell you that there’s nothing better than a man in a wrestling leotard.”

Peeta scoffs. “It’s not a leotard,” he says. “It’s a _singlet_.”

“Oh, sorry, my bad.”

“And I look fucking hot in it,” he says.

“Really caresses your curves, huh?”

“Every one of them,” Peeta quips into his drink. My heart is beating so fast I feel a little lightheaded. It might also be because he rolls up the sleeve of his baggy shirt and flexes slightly, winking at me. “I’ll get out of these oversized cargo shorts and show you if you want,” he offers.

“I don’t know, you look pretty good in those shorts,” I say. Okay. Definitely flirting, then. And yet another reminder of how hot he is. Even just sat here, lit poorly in the lanterns strung around the restaurant, in a button-down I’ve become more than a little used to by this point, our feet brushing under the table, his hair in riotous waves that are begging to be pulled, his eyes so, so blue as they watch me, his mouth with its stupid cupid’s bow pulling into a lopsided smirk.

“I’m glad you think so,” he says, and I yank my gaze away from his lips, face burning even more. He’s caught me, then. It was inevitable, I guess.

I sit there for a few seconds, brain trying to come up with something to say to distract from this… whatever it is but failing. I just sip my drink instead, embarrassed and turned on. When I look back at him, he’s still looking at me. Shit.

“What?” I ask, feeling like I’m being eaten alive.

“Nothing,” he replies. He lifts his glass. “To us,” he says. “And to Florence.”

We clink glasses. I drink again, needing liquid courage, and for what? I know what Jo would say. She’d say _look at you two, flirting, reciprocating_ and then probably advise I just maul him or something. As much as I’d like to do that… something stops me. I just know that I wouldn’t—couldn’t go through with it. It. Whatever _it_ is.

“Alright,” he says after we’ve ordered some dessert to share. “More questions. Tell me your favourite animal, your favourite food, and… do you have or want tattoos?”

I take a moment to think. “Mockingjay for animal, I think. As for food, my mom used to make this amazing lamb stew. And tattoos? I don’t know. I like them but I don’t know what I’d get or where. And I’d want it to mean something. It’s just the commitment of it all that kind of scares me.”

“Isn’t that the beauty of it, though?” Peeta asks. “Like, even if it’s a temporary moment you want to remember, or a person or place or whatever, it meant something to you at some point. That’s worth it, I think.”

I briefly think of my friend Darius, who had a slice of pizza tattooed onto his ass cheek when he was drunk.

“So you’d want a tattoo?” I ask.

“For sure. Haven’t gotten around to it yet, I’ll admit.”

“Me neither.”

His eyes widen almost comically. “Shall we get one?”

“I’ll get your name across my stomach,” I joke, and he snorts.

“Classy.”

“You’d love it.”

“Given your reaction to the face paint I don’t think matching tatts are the best choice for us right now.”

“Right now?!”

“We might feel differently if we keep drinking,” he shrugs.

“I’d let you design one,” I say. “You’re a great artist, Peeta.”

“Thanks,” he says, suddenly shy.

“I’m serious,” I enthuse. “If you ever decide to go back to school, go for Fine Art, okay? I’d one hundred percent support you.”

“With the money you make from your environmental science job?”

“I meant _emotionally_ ,” I clarify, laughing.

“Alright, alright, fine. I’ll go and paint and you can pat me on the back every night when I get disheartened about capitalism.”

“Sounds good,” I say, and god, doesn’t it? But he’s doing it again. Saying stuff as if we’re planning something long term. All I can focus on is the end of this meal, this evening. The end of Florence. I don’t want it to end but if he plans for it to continue, I guess there’s nothing to fear. Maybe he’ll come with me to Bologna. To Venice. Maybe this will be it for me, meeting the love of my life in Italy. I know my mom would love the prospect, as would Prim.

 _Why are you thinking about love?_ asks the doubtful voice in my head, and it has a point. I’ve never considered myself a romantic person, a person who believes in love at first sight. And the past few years have been so difficult that pursuing anyone has felt like an impossible task. Surely it can’t be this easy? This comfortable? The other shoe will have to drop at some point and I don’t want to do anything that might push it closer to the edge. I just want to live in this moment, right here. Eating dessert with Peeta by the river.

When we get back to our hotel room, Peeta showers and I text Jo and Gale, letting them know I’m in Florence and in one piece. Gale simply asks for photos and for a Facetime call at some point, while Jo demands information about Peeta.

 **Jo:** _you got his number right??? you missed ur chance in rome_

I cringe as I try to come up with a response that informs her that actually, he’s in Florence too, and we’re sharing a bed and candle-lit dinners on the regular. I decide to give her the basic truth.

**Me:** _yep. Got his number. but he’s also come with me to Florence :)_

**Jo: _…_**

**Jo:** _…_

**Jo:** _I can’t believe you_

**Jo:** _actually I can. He must seriously be in love with you_

**Me:** _as if_

**Jo:** _or maybe you’re in love with him._

**Jo:** _pls pls PLS facetime me okay?? I want to say hello to him._

**Me:** _not going to happen_

**Jo:** _funny that you haven’t told gale yet, huh?_

**Me:** _I’m going to!!_

**Jo:** _you’re hiding him away like he’s your nasty secret, brainless. Are you secretly ashamed of him? or is it just shame at yourself for thirsting after this poor boy_

I think of the flirty, heated looks and exchanges over dinner. Behind me, the bathroom door opens, spilling out steam and a shirtless Peeta. I avert my eyes but not before desire spirals through me.

“Shower’s free,” he says.

“Okay,” I reply, feeling like I’m giving myself away entirely.

**Me:** _he’s hardly innocent_

**Jo:** _oh I see. So you’re both nasty_

**Jo:** _i DEMAND a facetime okay??_

**Me:** _you’re giving me more reasons not to speak to u_

**Jo:** _whatever. Is he in the room right now?_

**Me:** _yep_

**Jo:** _tell him that if he does anything to you I’ll chase him around Italy idc if he tries to hide_

**Jo:** _unless of course it’s like… the good kind of doing… if u get my drift_

After that, I tell her an emphatic _goodnight, Jo_ and then grab my things and vanish into the bathroom. On the fogged up mirror, Peeta has drawn a sketch with his finger. It’s rudimentary, but rudimentary for him is avante garde modernism to me.

It’s a bird, a mockingjay, perched on a branch, which arches into a circle around the creature, leaves and flowers sprouting in all directions.

 _If you wanted a tattoo, I’d design this one for you_ , he’s written underneath. I stare at it for way too long. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I take a photo. A drawing on a hotel mirror, all for me.

“Thank you,” I say when I come out. “For the design.”

Peeta smiles, hair pushed back from his head, darkened from the shower. “Of course,” he says. “Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

We get into bed and watch bad local TV with the subtitles on until we’re both yawning, and then it’s lights out and exchanges of _goodnight_ and then I’m waiting for his breathing to level out, but it doesn’t, so I turn my head and look at him through the faint light coming in from around the curtains and see him looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he whispers. He shifts, and his foot grazes my calf. I have to grip the sheets to stop myself from reaching for him, to stop what I’m sure I’d only mess up. Instead, even though it feels like something immense is growing in my chest, I force myself to close my eyes and wait for sleep.

The next day is Peeta’s self-proclaimed _me-day_ , _plus Katniss_. He’s decided on two locations, the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Pitti, splitting the day in two so we can spend as much time as possible in both. I trail along just because he’s good company, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and because he promises to buy me dinner if I manage to keep up with him.

“Hey, I’m fine watching you _lust_ over old art,” I tell him as I pack my tote bag with bottles of water and some snacks, sun cream because he always forgets, a hat and some sunglasses, plus all the usual items. Peeta gives me a look from the other side of the bed, where he’s packing his own day bag with what looks like nothing but a sketchpad and some pencils.

“I’ve dealt with you _lusting_ over pasta since the day we met,” he says, and I try to ignore the way my heart beats faster at the sound _lust_ on his tongue, to little avail. I slide my sunglasses on. It’s going to be a good day, but a long one because my mind keeps running amok, reminding me of Peeta in Sant’Oreste, a blond, tanned vision, his half-unbuttoned shirt giving me flashes of a body I later saw in that hotel, and then in my apartment in Rome, and now here in Florence. It reminds me of going to sleep and waking up tangled in his arms, sometimes feeling him against me, half-hard in sleep. It reminds me of his hand in mine, of his hair flopping over his forehead, his piercing blue eyes, the way he can give me an innocent smile one moment and what feels like the most incredible bedroom eyes the next.

“Well, let’s go,” I say, glad my voice doesn’t wobble or come out too breathy.

I have a near out-of-body experience as we walk through Florence in the morning sunlight. There’s a crispness to the air clinging on from the night and the city is much quieter than yesterday when we arrived. Peeta strides with purpose towards the gallery, and I think for a moment how lucky I am to be here, walking through Florence with someone like him. I’m happy, truly happy, for the first time in over a year. And he’s managed to do it just through virtue of being himself. By talking to me, with me, letting me cry in Rome, holding my hand, eating with me by rivers and in piazzas, making me feel comfortable enough to want to be around him but also like I’m on the precipice of something at every moment.

I take a breath, what I’m sure is a bewildered smile catching my lips. This is good. It is unexpected, but it is good.

Uffizi is located not far from where we were yesterday, a grand, magnificent building that was once a palace, now a square, ornate building of grey-gold stone sitting alongside the river. Artists creating and selling work are scattered through the grand courtyard, and tourists in hats with cameras around their necks move in gaggles towards the entrance. Peeta has already purchased tickets, and it’s not long before we’re inside.

We walk through hallways lined with statues, into domed rooms filled with Hellenistic art. Even though it’s still early, crowds are beginning to form, gathering to gaze in awe at selected works of Michelangelo, Botticelli, more artists than I can name but who Peeta can recall from the top of his head. It’s beautiful and opulent and Peeta is enraptured by it all. I snap a photo of him after he spends a good ten minutes staring at an array of portraits.

“I just—I find it fascinating that paintings like this are our only visual records of people that once lived,” he says, apparently not noticing my phone but knowing I’m there. “Now everyone has a million pictures of themselves… but these people only had this.”

“They’re beautiful,” I say. Peeta glances at me and then back at a portrait.

“I’ve always liked drawing and painting people,” he murmurs.

“You could draw me, if you wanted,” I say. My cheeks burn like I’m offering more.

Peeta just smiles at me. “I’d like that,” he murmurs.

Soon after, we work our way through a busy room. When Peeta sticks out his hand so we don’t get separated, I take it, and regret letting go. It’s like being in Rome again, that one afternoon where our hands clasped and didn’t part for that short, glorious time. Being reminded of the shape of his hand, the warmth, the gentle strength in his fingers—it’s dizzying. I’d happily follow him across Italy if he promised not to let go.

He does, of course. But we orbit each other like planets as we go from room to room, making jokes or murmuring commentary about different paintings and sculptures. Peeta sketches quickly and efficiently, grabbing a seat when he can but otherwise just standing, and every time I’m amazed at how he manages to capture images with just a few skilful strokes of the pencil. When I compliment him on his rendering of fragments of the iconic _Judith Slaying Holofernes_ , he gets red-eared and modest about it.

“It’s nothing,” he says. The well-known painting is striking to stand in front of, seeing the violence of the scene, the calm, collected retribution of Judith, the strength of the two women in that pivotal moment. Peeta captures it with solemnity and grace that I can’t help but admire.

Stopping in front of Caravaggio’s _Bacchus,_ Peeta smirks at me.

“That’s me,” he says. “I identify with this painting.”

I snort. “After seeing you drink and dance in Rome, I whole-heartedly agree.”

“Didn’t have my little robe with me though.”

“Tragically,” I say, and he elbows me, eyes sparkling.

I wonder away from him at some point, leaving him to frown like he’s some astute art critic at some war paintings, and find myself in front of _The Wrestlers_ , a marble sculpture of two nude men grappling. Peeta appears beside me and I jump. He grins, eyebrows waggling.

“Something caught your eye?” he asks.

“Just wondering if you identify with this piece as well,” I reply breezily. “That’s wrestling, right?”

“Needn’t I remind you that I wore a _singlet_ ,” he says.

“That’s basically naked,” I shoot back, and he fixes me with a bold look and says, “You’d like that, huh?”

I shove him, but I think it’s too late for him not to notice my expression. I might as well strip down right here and tell him to do whatever he damn wants, but instead I just walk away, heart pounding, wishing I had Johanna’s ability to be brave about this sort of thing.

It’s gone midday when we leave the gallery, finding somewhere to eat and briefly rest our feet before moving on. Peeta seems quieter than usual, especially given that he’s just spent two hours mooning over art in a fancy building, and it goes on for long enough that I have to ask if he’s okay. In the admittedly short amount of time we’ve been together, I haven’t seen him look even mildly troubled.

“Are you alright?” I ask as we perch on the wall overlooking the river. He stares out at the water and buildings opposite for a moment, and then looks at me, brows pulled together.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he blurts out. I blink at him. He looks away, cowed.

“What? When?” I ask, frankly confused. He rubs the back of his neck.

“Back by the wrestling sculpture,” he says. “I thought we were just joking… if I went too far, I’m sorry. You looked uncomfortable as soon as I said it.”

_That’s basically naked._

_You’d like that, huh?_

I stare at him. I wasn’t uncomfortable, far from it. The only discomfort I experienced was because the idea of him naked just… brings to mind thoughts I don’t know how to handle. Hardly discomfort, not really. And he was so bold to say it. I’m not so thick that I can’t see that our exchanges have been flirtatious. The issue at hand is how to react to it all in a reasonable manner than conveys how I feel and how I have been feeling since the moment I spotted him.

The fact is, I would like it. I’d like it very much. I just can’t say it. Can’t say _yes_ to his teasing, flirty remark.

“I-I wasn’t uncomfortable,” I say, and this time, damn it, my voice does sound breathy. “Peeta, I know you were just joking. It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. He swallows hard, apparently more concerned than I thought he’d be. “I just—I don’t want things to be awkward and I don’t expect anything and—”

“Peeta, stop apologising, I wasn’t offended or uncomfortable, really. I brought the whole wrestling thing up. Discomfort wasn’t what I was feeling, I promise.”

He nods. Frowns back out at the river and then back at me while my own head spirals at _discomfort wasn’t what I was feeling_. Jesus Christ.

Before he can say anything or try to apologise again, I put my hand on his arm and squeeze.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” I say. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He nods again. “Okay.”

I let go of his arm, nudge his foot with mine. We don’t say much else as we eat our sandwiches, legs kicking over the edge of the wall, the city humming around us, the sun hitting its highest point.

“How’d you like Uffizi?” I ask when we finally finish eating and set out on the short walk to Palazzo Pitti. Peeta still seems a little muted compared to usual, and I’m determined to pull him out of this funk. Not that I don’t appreciate that he can’t be his happy, charming self all the time, but the idea that he feels any guilt or regret is enough to make _me_ unhappy. All I want is to retain my dignity around him, but not at the expense of him thinking that he’s done something inappropriate.

 _Frankly_ , says a little voice that sounds suspiciously like Jo, _doing something a little inappropriate would probably be pretty fun._

“It was beautiful,” he says. “And I think Pitti is going to be even better.”

“Good,” I say. I loop my arm through his before I can chicken out and relief rolls through me when I see some of the tension in his shoulders seep away. “Because the damn place is meant to be absolutely huge.”

The palace truly is ginormous, and I’m glad we’ve got the rest of the afternoon to explore. Pitti was on my list too—my mother visited on her trip to Italy and always remembered it fondly—and although the notion that she was once here makes my grief sharpen, it’s not as sharp as the church in Rome where she’d met my father, a place I have pictures of. Having Peeta alongside me makes it all the better, and rather than spend the day reminiscing and possibly falling into a deeper shade of grief, I find myself feeling light as a feather, finding joy in just being in my own Peeta-bubble amidst countless other tourists.

The ground floor is marginally interesting, though neither Peeta nor I have much fascination in the silverware exhibit, so we quickly zip around and then ascend to the next floor to see the Royal Apartments. We marvel at the Blue Room, with its cool-toned gold, silver, and pale blue walls and vaulted ceilings, and at the Oval Cabinet, which is so visually overwhelming I can’t imagine ever living there and being able to think clearly. The Queen’s bedroom is ornate beyond compare—I compare it to my apartment in Rome, with its exposed brick (by design and by a lack of upkeep), creaky floorboards, and plain, white-washed walls, and can’t help but think I’d rather live there than in rooms like these.

It’s busy, too, now that it’s the afternoon, so we don’t get much time to linger or move at the slow pace we achieved at Uffizi. I don’t mind, though, easily able to move at my own pace when Peeta stays put to sketch or just stare with a level of intensity that I know would reduce me to a puddle if I was the subject of it.

The Palatine gallery is also on this floor, consisting of 28 rooms of what was once a vast private collection containing everything from tiny paintings to massive framed masterpieces that I have to crane my neck to look at. It’s hard to believe that people once lived in buildings like this, with thousands of precious pieces of art mounted on their walls for their eyes only.

The last floor contains a gallery of modern art, and a collection of Italian costumes and fashions from as far back as the 16th century. I find myself enraptured by the costumes. Prim was always into historical fashion, and I know that if we had ever managed to come to Italy together, she would have been overjoyed to spend an hour among the jewellery and ball gowns and nothing else.

I stay and gaze at billowing gowns and brightly-coloured breeches while Peeta makes his way through the modern art, and when I go and find him, he’s filled another few pages with sketches. It’s a good day to spend with him, rather than getting lost in a sea of memory and emotion about a place my mother visited once, decades ago, before she knew my father, before me or Prim ever existed.

“You ready to go?” Peeta asks eventually, and I nod.

“I’ve seen enough art for one day.”

“Thanks for humouring me,” he says. “I know it’s not the most exciting thing, walking around looking at old art.”

I shake my head. “It’s exciting,” I say, carefully omitting that the main reason for this excitement is because Peeta is there, and he never fails to make my heart race. “Don’t worry. I’ll just get payback later when I’m making you hike up a mountain somewhere.”

As soon as I say it, I know I’ve done what he did, which was so talk about the future—our future—as a forgone conclusion. Whether it makes him as nervous as it made me, I can’t tell. But now, standing on the other side of things, I realise how easy it was to say it.

Finally, we exit the building and step out into the adjoining Boboli Gardens, a public space of geometry and symmetry, of flower beds, swathes of perfectly cut grass, and bubbling waterfalls. I tell Peeta about how happy I am, as embarrassing as it is to be admitting my own emotions after years of suppressing them because other things were more important.

“I’m happy,” I say. “I’m happy to be here with you.”

He takes my hand, purposefully this time, not to pull me out of the path of a moped or so we don’t get separated in a crowd, but just for the pleasure of holding it. I clasp it in both of mine. Years ago, I never thought I would feel like this, but whatever it is that I feel for Peeta—I have to let it play out, no matter how scary it is. I can worry all I like, but I can’t let it stop me from pursuing what has quickly become, and is continuing to be, some of the happiest days of my life so far. It might scare me, but I know I’d regret shutting it down just out of fear. I have to be brave.

“You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that,” Peeta says quietly. “You deserve happiness, Katniss. If I can play any part in providing you with that…” he trails off, gives me a meaningful look, and exhales. “I’m glad I met you.”

It’s the most we’ve said to each other about our feelings, the most direct anyway, and it makes my stomach fill with butterflies.

“Come on,” I say. “We’ve got one more stop.”

We navigate through the gardens at an easy pace, along dappled pathways and past countless statues, and along the way, I insist we stop to pick up a bottle of wine and some picnic food.

“Where are we going?” Peeta asks as I load him down with our purchases, zipping his backpack up again once they’re in place.

“You’ll see,” I reply. “Now come on, it’s a bit of a trek and I don’t want to miss the sunset.”

It does turn out to be a bit of a hike, following the city walls with their huge turrets, crickets chirping in the early evening sunlight, trees providing us with much-needed shade. We pass scores of people, many of whom seem to be heading to the same spot I have in mind. While the Piazzale Michelangelo is a famed look-out spot that provides great views of Florence, especially as the sun sets, it can get pretty crowded by all accounts online. Thankfully we manage to nab a spot on the grand stone steps just below, sitting side-by-side. Even the presence of others, mostly couples and errant groups of tourists from coaches, doesn’t ruin the experience. Instead, it just feels like it’s a communal acknowledgement of a beautiful sky over a beautiful city.

“Wow,” Peeta says, gazing out. The setting sun makes him look like a cherub, his blue eyes twinkling and his golden hair aglow.

“Worth the walk?” I ask, and he nods.

“Definitely.”

And so we sit throughout the evening, watching the sun go down. We eat our food, crusty bread, slathered with butter, cheese, hams, olives, fruit, and of course, our wine.

“To Florence,” Peeta says. “Which has treated us so well so far.”

I drink to that, clinking my glass against his.

We people-watch as we eat and drink and relax, sticking our feet out in front of us over the steps. There are groups of friends chatting and laughing, couples walking or reclining, hand-in-hand or with their arms wrapped around each other. There are countless people snapping photos, and plenty more just standing there and gazing in awe at the scenery, from the dome of the cathedral to the hazy mountains in the distance, to the river making its slow way through buildings burnished in a pinkish-red light.

“Hey, look,” Peeta murmurs, pointing to a couple further down the way. One of them has dropped to one knee in proposal. Around them, people gasp and cheer, and when the answer is an emphatic _yes!_ there’s applause.

“That’s sweet,” I say, watching the couple hugging.

“Romantic,” Peeta echoes.

“You believe in romantic gestures?” I ask, and he glances at me and then moves to go down on _his_ knee. I yelp, dragging him back up as he laughs. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” I hiss, making him laugh harder.

“Yes, I do,” he says. “I’m not necessarily about public proposals—”

“What if they say no?” I butt in, and he nods enthusiastically.

“Exactly—but I like small romantic gestures. Buying flowers, or going on car journeys just to see a sunset. Little things are nice. My grandpa used to bring my grandmother her morning coffee every day without fail. I think little reminders of love and affection are more important than grand gestures.”

I consider his words. I agree whole-heartedly. At high school, promposals and the like made me cringe, and seeing or hearing stories of over-the-top, often public displays of love, no matter how well-intentioned or received, just made me nervous. Just like Peeta with his grandparents, I grew up with parents who constantly seemed to be in love, who cared for each other in every moment, even when they argued. I grew up hearing my father singing as he twirled my mother in our tiny, sunlit kitchen, and my mom rubbing soothing oils into my father’s shoulders when he came home from the mines more aches than a man. That is what I truly value. I’ve known that for a long time, even if I thought that kind of thing would never be something I’d experience.

“Even small moments like this,” Peeta continues. “Just sitting here, together, and being present with each other. I think that’s important.”

He’s still looking at the newly-engaged strangers down the way, and I watch him. He looks slightly mournful so I bump his boot-covered foot with my own sneaker-clad one.

“You jealous?” I ask.

“Well you did just reject my hand in marriage, so…” he teases, and I shake my head, pouring some more wine. “No, I’m not jealous. It just makes me think about life, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say eloquently. “Seeing other people living theirs… it reminds you that everyone is at a different part of their existence, that they have love and hate and everything in between just like we do.”

Peeta nods. “It does.”

“Don’t get melancholy,” I say, because that feels like where this conversation is headed. I almost tell him _don’t worry, you’ll find someone and marry them and live a wonderful, perfect life,_ but something stops me from doing so. With a start, I realise that _something_ is some odd ribbon of jealousy—my vision of Peeta marrying an imaginary woman is enough to make me resentful.

It’s an embarrassing realisation, but sends a rush through me. Finally, in some small capacity, I’m able to acknowledge that I like Peeta beyond the bounds of Florence or Rome or Italy itself. I like him enough that I don’t want him to share his life with anyone else. It’s a surprisingly possessive understanding that _this person makes every day a good day, no matter what, and I don’t want that to end_.

Even though inside I’m all emotional turmoil and revelation, I still manage to give Peeta a calm smile.

“I’m not melancholy,” he says. “Just thinking.”

So I sit there and let him think and try not to allow my own thoughts to run too wild, at risk of doing or saying something stupid. I text Jo, letting her know that I’m more than alright, sending a photo of the city spread below us. She replies with _looks pretty cosy to me!!!_. I send the same picture to Gale and to Madge, the latter of whom responds almost immediately with heart eyes and a request to Facetime. Not wanting to interrupt this moment I have with Peeta, I promise her (and by extension, Gale) that I’ll call them tomorrow morning. Then I text Jo back, feeling brave, a little reckless.

**Me:** _I really like him. what do I do?_

I mostly expect a sarcastic response. Jo is a dear friend, brutally honest at every moment, a true rock in my life, but we never really talk about emotions. Jo’s emotional vocabulary when it comes to non-platonic relationships is pretty much limited to lewd comments and the winking face emoji.

But instead she says,

**Jo:** _tell him. u have more to lose by not saying anything_

I have to reread those few nine words at least four times for it to even make a dent I my psyche. I can’t even respond, putting my phone in my bag and closing my eyes to feel the dying sun on my face instead and be present, like Peeta said.

We don’t talk much until the sun has properly set, at which point we gather our things and set about walking back to our hotel. It’s easy going, our stomachs filled with cheap wine and delicious food. I’m tipsy but not enough to embarrass myself, and we make our way back through Florence like a merry pair of minstrels. At one point we stumble across a man playing a violin and we do a ridiculous series of twirls and four-steps, and then we’re just laughing and laughing and for once I feel my age, and free as a bird.

When we get back to the hotel, my feet ache from walking and my face aches from smiling. Peeta falls face-down on the bed and begins to snore and I poke his leg on my way to the bathroom to shower. When I come out, he looks like he actually did fall asleep, a little bleary-eyed as he stares in confusion at an Italian news channel, before going to shower himself.

While I’m alone in the room, I stare at myself as I rub moisturiser into my face. God. I really do like him. I’m acting like I’m a teenager with a crush. Maybe I’m just finally catching up to experiencing that kind of thing after spending my actual teenage years essentially raising Prim while mom went through the darkest years of her depression following dad’s death. Maybe I just needed to find the right person who would make me feel like this. Wanting, and wanted in return.

Whatever it is, when Peeta comes out of the bathroom, hair damp, shirtless in a way that I’m half-convinced he does it just to fluster me, I remind myself that feeling this way isn’t a bad thing. That even if I’ve only known Peeta for a cumulative week, that week has been intense and joyful in a way I’d have never expected otherwise.

“You want hot chocolate?” Peeta asks, rifling through the little basket of complimentary goodies sat on the tiny table that holds a kettle and the phone for the front desk.

“Yes,” I say, heart thundering in my chest. I walk closer to Peeta while the kettle boils with surprising veracity for what is a laughably small appliance. I stand just beside him as he pours and stirs and asks me if I want milk and my brain says _what are you doing? What are you going to do? Are you going to chicken out? Did you hallucinate today? All the looks and touches… are you reading it all wrong?_

One minute he’s lamenting the lack of proper facilities for ‘real’ hot cocoa, and the next he’s looking at me with a perfect mix of sweetness and something that makes me feel like I’m touching a livewire, makes me want to touch every part of him until he dissolves under my fingers.

He must see something wild in my expression, because he puts down the spoon he’s holding and looks at me, one eyebrow raised.

“You good?” he asks.

“Can I kiss you?” I blurt out, feeling daring and terrified at the same time. If Peeta hadn’t come with me to Florence, who knows if I’d have seen him again? I most likely would have never been able to ask a question like that ever again. Today has felt filled with flirtatious looks and remarks. Now I have to take my chance.

He blinks twice and then the corner of his mouth lifts.

“You want to kiss me?” he asks quietly.

“Yes,” I say. My palms are growing sweaty as word-vomit threatens to pour from my mouth. Instead, I just say, “Since Rome, really. Maybe even before then.”

He only takes a small step forward, but it’s enough to make me feel like he’s crowding my space, and I don’t mind it. I think of us dancing in that club, how I thought he was going to kiss me then, how good it felt to have his hands on me. I want that feeling back. Really, it never left, but now I want to fan it into a roaring fire and submerge myself in the flames.

“I wanted to kiss you too,” Peeta murmurs. My heart pounds in my chest.

“You have?”

“Yes. It’s been—it’s been torture, not knowing if you wanted it.”

“I wanted it. I want you.”

He breathes out roughly. “I thought I’d fucked up today.”

“You haven’t. The only reason I walked away was because I knew that if I didn’t I’d have kissed you right in front of those two naked guys.”

“I thought I fucked up at the viewing point too,” he admits. “Getting all sappy about _life_.”

“You didn’t,” I say. “You didn’t.”

He laughs, his breath ghosting over my lips. “Good,” he murmurs, and then I lift up on my toes and kiss him, determined to show him that yes, it is good. I cup his jaw in my palm, lean bodily into him, every cell in me tingling at the feeling of his chest pressed against mine, his hand on the small of my back but twitching like he wants to dip it lower.

It’s a brief kiss, pretty tame considering how much I’ve wanted to touch him for the past week, but when I rock back, his eyes are blown and I know mine must be. He’s the one to lean in this time, and I grip the front of his shirt, tangling the material in my fingers, while my other hand slides around to the back of his neck to keep him close. He slides his hands around my waist and when his mouth opens against mine, I can’t help but gasp.

When we pull apart again, I’m panting for breath. _Finally_ my brain says, over and over.

“Finally,” Peeta says against my mouth, and I grin like an idiot and kiss him again, teeth clashing, until he begins to kiss across my cheek and down my neck instead, making me brace myself on the little table, leaning back against the wall, a moan escaping me.

Peeta steps closer, hips pressing against mine until I’m perched on the table, gasping when I feel him already hard against me, rolling against him to make him groan low in his chest. I grip his sides, feeling the muscles beneath his skin, his ribcage. The kiss deepens with ease, hot and wet. Some distant part of myself realises that I’m making sounds that should probably be embarrassing, but it all feels so good that I can’t bring myself to care.

“Peeta,” I whimper when he kisses over my jaw and onto my neck, I rock my hips against his and he hisses. God. All I’ve wanted is this. To feel him against him, to kiss him and pray that he kisses back. And now it’s happening, and it’s so much, so intense, and now—

And now I say, _wait, wait_ , and he pulls back immediately, face creasing with concern, his hair all rumpled, lips swollen.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks, and I cup his face, shaking my head.

“No, no,” I murmur, and his concern fades a little. As much as I just want to let this unravel, let him do what he wants with me, that nagging voice keeps shouting. _What if it’s just a fling? What if you regret it? What then what then what then?_

“I—I don’t know what I want,” I admit. “I like you, Peeta. A lot. But I’m afraid that—”

“That we’ll get sick of each other?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Or that we’ll realise that it was more the proximity that led to this than actually liking each other?” he adds casually. I stare at him, a little surprised not only at his frankness, but at how he’s put into words exactly what I was fearing.

“Yes,” I say, blinking. “Yes, exactly.”

He smiles ruefully at me.

“Don’t think for a minute I haven’t stressed about the same thing,” he says, tucking some unruly hair behind my ear. “Because I definitely have.”

I exhale. It’s almost a relief to know that we both feel this unsure. “I don’t want to hurt you… or get hurt myself,” I say. I furrow my brow. Why is it so hard to express myself? “Because what do we do then? If it… goes wrong?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. Then he laughs wryly, the sound rolling through me. “Maybe we need to be a little more optimistic. What if we _don’t_ get sick of each other? What if it keeps going?”

 _It_. That one little word that encapsulates how undefined our relationship is, and at the same time lets me hold it in my palm and eye it from all angles, crush it if I need to. But on the flipside, the prospect of _this_ and _it_ just… not ending… it makes my heart leap in a mix of fear and excitement.

“Maybe we just let it play out?” I whisper.

“I would like that. No pressure on ourselves.”

He smiles at me. I smile at him, and then pull him down and kiss him again. It’s slower this time, sweeter, and when we finally break apart, he reaches for my hand and kisses my knuckles.

“I’m glad we talked,” he says. I look at him. “I was kind of going crazy wondering if you liked me too.”

“Annie told me you liked me,” I whisper, and his cheeks go red.

“Of course she did,” he sighs. “She and Finnick love to meddle.”

“I mean… she was right,” I say, and Peeta moves in close again, angling my jaw out of the way as he kisses loudly down my neck, making me laugh. “I do like you, dummy,” I say, and he pulls back to beam at me. “And I don’t really do flings.”

He affects a faux affronted expression. “You don’t think I’m fling-worthy?”

I feel my face heat up. “No, no, I think you are,” I say, my body humming at the concept. “But I wouldn’t want it to be a fling. Not with you.”

His smile, then, is such a perfect mix of abashed and shy and lovely that I want to live in the feeling it gives me. Warmth is bubbling in me, soft and sweet and sustaining.

“I’m just saying, you did drag me into bed the day we met, so…” he says, and I scoff.

“You could’ve said no,” I remind him, and he grins.

 _Just see where it goes… how it plays out,_ I think to myself. It all feels so fast. Everything since the moment I met him has felt intense and bright and warm and maybe I’m just caught up in it all, but isn’t that what I’m meant to be doing? Finding myself, taking risks, embracing the moment. If the moment has so determinedly put Peeta in my path, who am I to reject it?

I can do that if it means more of this. More of Peeta.

“The hot chocolate is getting cold,” he says after a minute or so. The room is quiet, a cool breeze drifting in through the balcony, and for a second I could imagine I was back in Rome. Except now everything is different. A good different. I feel lighter.

We grab our drinks and sit down on the end of the bed. Peeta leans back on one hand and smiles at me as he drinks.

“What?” I say, feeling self-conscious under his gaze.

“Nothing,” he replies. “I just can’t believe I got to kiss you.”

I roll my eyes even though I feel like I need to go and dance in the street. We sit and drink our hot chocolates in comfortable quiet, the heat of earlier fading to a warm glow. When we’re done, we climb into bed, and I don’t hesitate to curl into his side.

“You smell really good,” I say when the lights are out and sleep is beckoning me. “Goodnight Peeta,” I whisper.

He kisses my forehead. “Goodnight, Katniss.”

The next morning, I wake with Peeta’s arm thrown across me. I twist around, heart already racing at having him so close to me, and only get thirty seconds to watch him sleep and appreciate just how handsome he is before his eyes snap open.

“Oh, hey,” he says, voice rough in a way that makes my insides zing. His arm twitches around my waist and then he seems to realise where the limb is. “Is this okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, remembering what we said last night. _No pressure_. “It is.”

We get up even though I sense we’d both be happy to laze in bed until noon. After all, we have to catch the train to Pisa. While I get ready, Peeta runs out to grab coffee and a bite to eat.

With him gone, I take the opportunity to facetime with Madge and Gale like I promised I would. I lean out onto the narrow balcony and call them, and it takes only three seconds of seeing Madge’s face for me to realise how much I miss my friends.

“Katniss!” she exclaims, her voice crackling and the image quality pixilating before righting itself. “How are you? How’s Florence?”

“Hi!” I reply, a smile already on my face. “I’m doing great, Madge, and Florence is absolutely gorgeous—you’d love it here.”

Madge sighs. “I know I would. Gale keeps making excuses. I don’t know.”

“He’s a grouch,” I say. “You’ll wear him down.”

“I do with most things,” she muses. “Tell me more about Florence. How was the train journey? What have you been up to?”

“The train was like an hour and a half so not too bad, and the view was pretty damn good. As for Florence itself, we—I’ve been seeing the sights, going to some galleries and cathedrals, eating some excellent pasta, the usual. I’ll send you over some photos from yesterday and today. I’m going to Pisa since it’s so close by.”

Luckily, Madge doesn’t seem to notice my pronoun slipup, sighing instead at the prospect of Florence and Pisa. After another few minutes of just us two chatting, she cranes her neck and beckons Gale over, who’s just arrived home from work.

“Catnip, hey,” he greets, bending his tall body down so he’s in frame. “Glad to see you.”

“You too,” I say. “How’s it going?”

“Haymitch is slowly killing my will to live,” he shrugs. “Nothing new.”

Haymitch is Gale’s boss, and while he’s fair and amenable when it comes to work, he’s a grouchy piece of shit to have to deal with on a daily basis.

Gale vanishes to change and reappears a little while later, and the three of us chatter easily, talking about our days, and I promise yet again that I am coming north and that I will come and see them properly.

“It’ll be getting cold by the time you get here, so we can go and ski and find a little cabin to stay in!” says Madge.

“Katniss doesn’t want to come to a little cabin in the woods and be a third wheel, babe,” Gale says.

“I don’t mind it as long as you two aren’t gross!” I exclaim, laughing. “Seriously, a cabin in the Swiss mountains sounds perfect.”

“You need someone to bring with you,” Madge coos, and I give a smile I hope doesn’t look too guilty. It doesn’t matter in the end, though, because with my headphones in and my attention on my friends, I don’t hear Peeta coming back into the room behind me and don’t see him on the little screen until Madge and Gale have frozen, staring open-mouthed at me.

“Did I… did I just see a man walk into your hotel room?” Madge asks, brow furrowed.

“What?” I say, looking over my shoulder through the half-drawn curtains. Peeta waves, from near the door, lifting the coffee and pastries he’s bought, none the wiser to the shock of his appearance to my friends. I internally face-palm. Great.

“Who the actual fuck?” Gale says, and I curse, yanking the curtains across the balcony door to hide Peeta from sight. I see his look of confusion but there’s no time to explain and really, my curtain-yanking just makes it worse. Gale and Madge are yelling about ‘the man who just broke in’ and ‘oh my god call the police, Katniss!’ and I know that no curtain will solve this issue now.

“Guys, guys, it’s alright!” I exclaim with a grimace. I now have to explain to the both of them—especially Gale—what is objectively (and subjectively, if I’m honest) a crazy thing to do. That I’ve been travelling with (sleeping in the same bed as, holding hands with, making out with) a stranger. And not just any stranger, but the very same one I so briefly mentioned way back in Caprarola, who they for all intents and purposes think I dropped off in Rome, end of story.

I explain—most of it—and afterwards Gale looks like he always did when we were kids and I’d do something impulsive and be really stubborn about it, and Madge looks both enthralled and shocked at my decision making.

“So we’re just travelling together, now,” I explain, keeping my voice low so the man in question doesn’t overhear me talking about him, though it’s probably too late. “It’s not a big deal. He’s really nice.”

“And this is the same guy from before Rome?” Gale asks.

“Yeah,” I say. He rubs his forehead with his hand, leaning back in his seat so he’s out of frame.

“Katniss, oh my god,” says Madge. “What if he turned out to be a creep?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not,” I reply, even though a thousand true crime documentaries all stating that no one suspected the killer flash across my eyes. “Guys, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but honestly, what did you expect?”

“Did you tell Johanna?” Gale asks. I cringe, which is enough of an answer. He looks marginally hurt, making me feel worse. “You told _Johanna Mason_ but not me, your best friend?” he asks.

“Only because I knew you’d make a big deal out of it, _Gale_.”

“How long has she known? And not said anything?”

“Not that long. A week?”

“So since you drove him back to Rome?” Gale deadpans, unimpressed.

“I mean… we didn’t see each other for a few days in between,” I say. I wonder if Gale is about to burst a blood vessel in his eye or something but power on so he can’t open his big mouth again. “I didn’t really mean to say anything. I don’t know why I did. And then she _accidently_ met him for like thirty seconds over facetime and I told her not to say anything because I’d tell you eventually.”

“When would that have been? When you arrived with him in tow on my doorstep?”

“Oh, Katniss, you have to let us meet him,” Madge sighs. “At least send me a photo of him.”

Gale looks at his wife like she’s betrayed him.

“Am I the only one not finding this even slightly romantic?” he asks.

“Hey, this isn’t a sweeping romance,” I protest. “We’re just friends. Just travelling. That’s it.”

The half-lie feels hollow on my own tongue and Gale seems to notice, narrowing his grey eyes.

“You’re nuts,” he says. Madge barges in closer to the camera.

“You _are_ nuts, Katniss, but how exciting! I did get worried knowing you were all alone. It must be nice to have a friend to come with you.”

“It is,” I say, unable to help my smile. “He’s really nice and it’s been good fun so far. Don’t stress out, Gale, jesus. Even my own parents wouldn’t have worried this much.”

“You don’t know that,” he scoffs. “Besides, someone has to worry about your sanity and safety.”

“I’m fine!” I insist. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, he’s from Panem too, remember?”

“How would that make me feel better?” Gale asks at the same time as Madge gasps, “Wow! What are the odds of that?”

“Yeah, what are the odds,” Gale says suspiciously. I roll my eyes.

“You don’t recognise him at all?” Madge asks, and I shake my head.

“Not that I can think of,” I shrug. Panem was small, as were Merchantville and Seamtown, but I stayed in the latter for the majority of the time, and Merchantville was big enough that it was definitely easy not to know everyone. People from the Seam didn’t tend to mix with the Merchants.

“What’s his name?” Gale asks.

“Why, so you can look him up?” I ask.

“Yes,” he deadpans, deadly serious. “Obviously.”

“Peeta,” I say. “He went to Merchant High.”

“Peeta Mellark?” Gale asks.

“Yeah…” I say. Gale’s eyebrows lift.

“I remember him,” he says. “I was in the same grade as his older brother. His parents ran that little bakery on Riordan Street, remember?”

I don’t remember, not really. It’s been years since I was in Panem for any time longer than a week. I left for college and barely came back even to visit, which I regret now that mom and Prim are gone. Still, I think I can remember a poky little bakery with white clapboard and a porch. Peeta spoke about it the evening we arrived here in Florence, but it’s not clear in my memory.

“I think so…” I say. “Why?”

“The older brother played football at college,” Gale says, eyes lifted as he thinks back. “And the middle brother… I can’t remember what happened to him. But the bakery burned down like, a year or two ago, I think. If I remember correctly, the older brother and the baker died.”

My stomach bottoms out. “What?”

“Yeah. There was this huge investigation into what happened. You don’t remember hearing on the news?”

Maybe I did see the story, but I don’t remember it. That was around about the time that Mom and Prim died. I was too wrapped up in my own tragedy to focus on anyone else’s.

But learning this… knowing that Peeta suffered that grief too. God. I can’t even imagine. Or I can, rather, but he’s never said a word. Why would he, really? The most he’s said is that the bakery existed, that he had a father and brothers—at the moment I didn’t realise he was talking in the past tense. When he said that he wouldn’t be taking the bakery on… this would be why. And why he came into some money suddenly, allowing him to fund this trip. It’s a tale I understand so well that I feel like it’s my own.

I look over my shoulder, through the gap in the curtains, to where Peeta’s crouched over his rucksack, sorting through some of his stuff. A pang of empathy slices through me. He doesn’t have to tell me a thing if he doesn’t want to. I certainly never intended to talk about my own family tragedy. I know, at least, that I’ll be there for him if he ever speaks about it.

“I didn’t know,” I quietly say to Gale and Madge. “He hasn’t talked about it.”

We switch to a more cheery topic for the last few minutes of the call, and then Madge and Gale ream me once more about travelling with a stranger. I insist that Peeta isn’t, not anymore, and that truthfully, he didn’t feel like a stranger to begin with.

After the call ends, I stay out on the balcony to think for a few minutes, and then Gale texts me.

**Gale:** _if you’re gonna to be travelling with him, it might be good to talk about your mom and prim. It might be good for both of you to talk._

I appreciate what he’s trying to say. Gale’s own father died in the same accident that killed mine, so he understands that loss. But that was over a decade ago, and he hasn’t lost his mother and three siblings. I know he’s always struggled with how to help me with that aspect of my grief, which came so unexpectedly after years of the both of us growing up without our fathers and learning to accept it.

He’s right. Peeta probably does have some good perspectives on this kind of thing. And I would hope that I could help him too, if he needed it. I’ve had a longer amount of time to live with grief. It made losing mom and Prim slightly easier, if not less painful.

My phone buzzes. Gale again, back to his usual routine.

**Gale:** _and I’m going to kill you when I see you. what the hell were you thinking, Catnip?? He’s a stranger!_

I roll my eyes. He means well, but sometimes I think he forgets I’m not thirteen and that I’m tougher than I look.

**Me:** _I know what I’m doing DAD. I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry about me pls_

He sends me back a gif of someone rubbing their temples but says nothing else.

I look out over the morning rising over the city. This beautiful place is so far away from everything and yet Panem has followed me here.

If Peeta wants to talk, I’ll be there to listen. It’s the very least I can do. He’s listened to everything I’ve had to say.

When I go back into our hotel room, Peeta is washing his face in the bathroom, and glances at me in the mirror when I lean in.

“You talking to your friends?” he asks, a drop of water running down his neck and over his bare chest.

“Yeah,” I say. “They think I’m nuts for travelling with you.”

He dries his face with a towel. “I mean… aren’t they worried for _my_ safety?”

“Sexism doesn’t work that way, buddy,” I say, and he snorts.

“Good thing we cleared up the stuff about serial killers early on, then, huh?” he says. He reaches for me and I go to him like a flower to the sun. He tentatively pulls me close, and I put my hands on his bare skin, thrilling that I can actually do this, now.

“You know I’d never hurt you, right?” he says quietly, his tone heavy.

“Yeah,” I say. “I trust you, Peeta.”

He brightens at my words and leans into kiss me. I pull away before it can deepen.

“We’ve got a train to catch,” I remind him, heading for the door.

“I trust you too,” he calls after me, and I look over my shoulder and smile, and then hide just out of his sight so I can put my face in my hands and grin like a godamn idiot.

The mid-morning train is fairly busy, but not unpleasantly so. Our fellow passengers appear to be mostly tourists, all in varying levels of stereotypically tourist get up. Peeta has left his cargo shorts in the hotel room, amazingly, swapping them for some nicely-fitted jeans.

“Where am I meant to put my six maps and emergency poncho now?” he laments, patting the denim, and I question how I got stuck with someone who looks so good and yet has so many bad jokes.

The train ride is pretty uneventful, the sky overcast and scenery mostly consisting of flat agricultural land or distant, shadowy hills and mountains, and I read some of my book, drink my coffee, and then play hangman and noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper with a very competitive Peeta. Before I know it, we’re in Pisa, jumping off at the platform and following the crowds out of the station.

“First we need something to eat,” I say, because it might not have been long since I ate the breakfast Peeta bought this morning, but travelling makes me hungry.

“Not gonna protest there,” Peeta says, and we waltz rather jubilantly down the street until we find a nice-looking and not-too-crowded coffee shop. We’re pointed upstairs and claim a tiny table next to a window overlooking the street. The flowers in the window box are delightful and when our food arrives—a sticky cinnamon pastry for Peeta and a cheese bun for me—I take a photo to send to the awaiting trio and then just enjoy myself and be present.

I guess I had expected something to change between us after last night, but the only thing that has really shifted is that I don’t feel apprehensive about touching him, and he has no qualms about touching me. It’s a brush of fingers, the bump of feet, or looks that feel like a touch. It’s a palpable shift into something charged but no less comfortable and easy as it was before.

Maybe, I realise once we leave the shop and make our way towards the titular tower, it’s because I’m not being driven mad by my desire to touch him in the first place. I’m not one for much PDA and I know we only made out last night, nothing further, but now, as we walk down a darling street, I’m struck by how I can just reach for Peeta’s hand and twine our fingers together. How I can push his hair back from his forehead before wedging a hat onto his dumb, sunburnt face, or how he can put his hand on the small of my back or wipe a bit of coffee foam from my mouth.

I almost forget we’re tourists in another new city, I’m so preoccupied with Peeta. But Pisa is lovely, if busy, and at the Tower, which really is leaning but is also positively swarming with people doing the exact same poses, we don’t stay for too long. Peeta gets his classic ‘leaning on the tower’ photo, I get a decent candid—a real rarity for a single traveller like myself—and we both a get a selfie together.

“Good thing I’ve got gangly arms,” he says, bringing his phone back in so we can look at the image.

“You are not gangly,” I say, sending Gale and Madge the candid, not feeling brave enough to send them the selfie just yet. “I’m just short.”

We escape the Tower crowds and go for lunch. We spend an indulgent two hours eating surprisingly good Indian food, before just sort of slowly meandering through the city. We consider getting the bus to the coast, but one look on Google tells us it’s a busy beach, so we just dip in and out of shops instead. I force Peeta into a suit in one boutique and take a picture when he reminds me it’ll last longer than if I just keep staring at how the material hugs his body, and in retribution he puts me in a hideous 80s-style velvet number in a thrift store that does me zero favours.

I buy a fridge magnet of the Tower because what else am I supposed to do in Pisa, and Peeta grabs a postcard after we spend about ten minutes rotating the postcard stand and considering the pros and cons of each design.

“You must have a million of those by now,” I say as he borrows a pen from the shopkeeper and scrawls on the back before tucking it somewhere in his backpack.

“Near enough,” he beams, and then we grab ice cream and begin a slow walk back to the train station to get back to Florence.

On the train itself, we sit side-by-side and watch the Tuscan landscape slide past, discussing our day. I don’t know what is is—the wine, the ice cream, the sun—but I find myself leaning in to him, kissing him once, briefly, too briefly, agonisingly briefly. I feel supercharged. I feel like a livewire. It doesn’t help that Peeta puts his hand on my thigh, low enough to be decent, but high enough that the feel of his fingers on where my shorts don’t cover my skin makes me feel like jelly inside. His gaze, hooded eyes dark and intense, make it hard to breathe. It’s a long journey back, and when we finally get to Florence, I have to find a secluded side street so I can pull him down and kiss him.

“Jesus, Katniss,” he says against my mouth. I grab his hand and tug him along, intending to go straight to the hotel. Peeta laughs. “You don’t want to get some more wine first?” he asks, half-joking. “Or maybe see a bit more of Florence before we leave?”

“I’ve seen enough,” I tell him, giving him a look that makes the tops of his ears go red. The desire to see just how low that blush spreads propels me onwards, allowing me to push on past my worries about doing something I’ll regret, about getting tied up in something that’ll only cause upset. I want Peeta. I know that. And what else am I meant to do? Lie in bed with him and do nothing?

He stops at a nearby convenience store and picks up some wine, and then we’re on our best behaviour as we walk through the hotel lobby and ascend in the elevator with a hotel worker who looks like she knows exactly what Peeta and I would be doing if we were alone, and then we’re crowding into our room and kicking the door shut so it locks behind us.

Peeta grabs some wine glasses and uncorks the bottle, pouring a generous helping. We look at each other as we tap glasses and drink.

“What are we doing?” he asks after a minute, licking his lips. I worry for a moment he’s having doubts. Or maybe he’s just surprised at my impulsiveness.

“I want to kiss you,” I tell him, setting my wine aside, as lovely as it is. “I’ve wanted to kiss you all day.”

He secures his hands on my waist. “How come you didn’t?”

“And risk a public indecency arrest?” I ask lowly, and his eyes darken, a smirk pulling over his mouth.

“Oh,” he says roughly.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” I whisper, and then we’re kissing again, hot and slow and deep, stumbling back towards the bed, hands roaming and pulling at clothes. He tastes like wine, and his tongue in my mouth is something sinful, making me burn and burn and burn.

It doesn’t take long for us to be shirtless and working on our respective jeans and shorts, and then I’m pushing him onto his back and straddling him in a sudden strike of confidence that has his eyes widening.

“Fuck,” he says, looking at my body in a way that makes my heart sing, hands settling on my hips. I kiss his mouth and then down his neck and over his chest. The blush reaches over his pecs, a delightful pink against his skin. “Katniss, wait,” he says when I pull at the half-open fly of his jeans. “What are we doing? I thought you wanted to take things slow.”

“I never said that,” I say, heart beating out of my chest. “You said no pressure. That’s what I want.”

He tips his head back. “Okay,” he murmurs.

“I want to do this,” I murmur, shifting down his body and palming him over his jeans, feeling how hard he is already. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay,” he says, propped up on his elbows. He fixes me with a look. “But I believe in returning the favour.”

I feel a wave of desire pour through me. I bite at Peeta’s hip, feeling more confident and more turned on than I think I ever have before.

“So we have an understanding,” I tell him, tugging his jeans over his hips. I crawl back towards him, maintaining eye contact as I kiss his stomach. His head drops back against the pillow, hands prone above his head, fingers flexing.

I’m a little nervous despite my bravado. I’ve had a few encounters over the course of my travels, but haven’t, overall, slept with many people in my time. And though I can’t see Peeta being disappointed, exactly, I want to make him feel good. Johanna’s loud, unsolicited advice about giving blowjobs on any partner blasts briefly into my head and I have to ignore it before the mood is killed entirely, instead pulling his jeans further down and his boxers, pulling out his cock.

It’s… honestly pretty damn beautiful as far as dicks go, and I wrap my hand around his shaft, tightening my grip as I glide my palm over his head. Then I lick my hand to aid in movement, and Peeta curses, one arm slung over his face as if he already can’t handle it. This is reassurance enough, and once he’s fully hard, I lick along the shaft, swirling my tongue around the head, using my hand to maintain a steady rhythm.

Peeta keeps cursing under his breath, and it’s only when I open my mouth wider and suck him down as far as I can than he releases the deepest, sexiest sound I’ve heard. It makes my pussy pulse, and I groan around his cock, hollowing my cheeks in response. Peeta lifts his head and looks down at me, propping himself up on one elbow and reaching for me with the other, one hand a gentle but assured pressure on my head, fingers twining in my hair.

I pull away and lick him again, base to tip, rubbing my thumb beneath the head, trying to figure out what he likes. His gaze is heated and unrelenting, and I smirk at him.

“You like watching?” I ask him, and he almost laughs, face creasing up as if in pain, and then his mouth drops open when I roll his balls in my other hand and suck on his head again, laving him with my tongue.

“God— _god_ ,” he stutters. Just seeing him react this way, so open with his pleasure, makes me feel like I’m on fire. His hips twitch like he’s trying not to thrust, so I get mean and take him further, grazing his heated flesh with my teeth, determined to make him come, determined to see him come.

It doesn’t take much longer. His hand on my head tightens.

“Katniss—” he says, voice like gravel, enough of a warning. When he realises I’m not going to pull away, he stares down at me with lidded eyes, bruised lips parted, the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never enjoyed giving a blowjob so much before. I hollow my cheeks again, palm his balls, and then he gasps and comes, lightly thrusting a few times, moaning again, loud, unabashed. I scrape my fingernails over his stomach, just enough to make his skin glow red for a moment, and he shouts my name.

When he’s done, I rock back onto my heels and wipe my mouth, before reaching for my wine to wash away the taste. I stand, sipping as I watch him. His chest heaves, and he scrubs his face with his hands like he’s exhausted all of a sudden.

“You okay?” I ask, feeling oddly proud of myself, and more turned on that I have in a long time. I didn’t realise I had a thing for reducing a guy to a puddle.

“What the fuck was that?” Peeta says, looking at me. I raise an eyebrow. He just keeps lying there. Men, I swear. One orgasm and they’re useless.

“Did you like it?” I ask. Peeta sits up, tucks himself back into his boxers, kicks off his jeans. Then he stands up, crowding in close to me. I keep standing there, casually enjoying my wine, which is kind of hard to do when he’s looking at me like that, eyes blown, red prickling his cheeks, hair a mess.

“Yes,” he says, leaning into to kiss me. His hands are rough on my bare stomach. “I did like it,” he murmurs, kissing me harder. “Now let me show you how much I enjoyed it.”

He takes the wine out of my hand and sets it aside, and then he’s kissing me again, slow and hot and wet, guiding me back until I’m lying on the bed. He crawls over me, and I relish at the weight of him above me, gripping his back, feeling the muscles moving beneath his smooth skin, gasping as he kisses down my neck.

“Can I?” he asks, eyes lingering on my bra.

“Yes,” I say, lifting up slightly so he can reach the clasp, which he undoes with ease, tossing it aside. Usually I’d be a little self-conscious about my breasts, which are nothing special, but as soon as he cups them in his hands, thumbing my nipples before sucking one into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth, I forget about feeling embarrassed and just fall into the waves of pleasure.

He makes his way down my stomach, and it’s clear what he’s going to do, but he asks if it’s okay anyway. I say, _hurry up, Peeta, I want this_ and he looks like he wants to say something sarcastic but restrains himself, yanking me further down the bed so he can settle on his knees and throw my legs over his broad shoulders. Guys I’ve slept with previously have tended to be on the lithe side, but Peeta is stocky, strong, a wrestler’s body. Built to overpower. A thrill rushes through me at the thought, distracting me when he pulls my underwear down and tosses them away.

For a moment he just sort of stares, and just before I might start to squirm, he kisses my inner thigh, lips grazing over my skin. He leans forward slightly and pushes my thighs wider open. I’m utterly exposed to him, chest already rising and falling with anticipation. I’m so wet it’s kind of ridiculous, and when he moves in closer, breath brushing over me, I fist the sheets beneath me, the tension too much already.

Finally he moves in, tongue against my slit, and I gasp. He does it again, one wide palm bracing on my thigh so he can get closer, deeper, the other wrapped around over my hip to keep me still. He teases, licking at my centre and nosing at my clit before spreading me open against his mouth and drinking from me.

“Oh, _Peeta_ ,” I say, pleasure spiking through me. I look down at him and see him looking at me, watching for my reactions, and see his cheeks bunch into a smirk. He’s enjoying himself, the bastard. He thrusts his tongue inside me, kissing me there like he did last night, the sounds sinful, almost drowned out by my increasingly heavy breathing.

Finally, once I’m already moaning and arching my back against the bed, he begins to suck my clit, worrying it with his tongue. I cry out, hands snapping down to bury in his hair, and he groans against me, the vibrations echoing through my entire body. He slides two fingers into me, rubbing until he finds the spot that makes me cry out again, louder, beg him not to stop, and then he adds a third finger, knuckle deep, still licking and sucking at my clit, elbowing my thighs out of the way when they threaten to spasm shut around his head, and I try not to yank his hair too hard but I can’t help it.

He keeps going, maintaining the rhythm that makes my breathing catch in my chest. When he slides a hand over my stomach to massage my breasts, I can’t help grinding against his face. He groans against me again, and that’s what tips me over the edge. I come, gasping his name, and he keeps going, prolonging my orgasm until I’m too sensitive and have to push him back.

“Oh my god,” I gasp when he pulls back. Pleasure spirals through me in jolts and waves, and I try to close my legs but he doesn’t let me, wiping his slick mouth with the back of his hand and then crawling back over me, kissing over my chest. I grab him by the back of the neck and kiss him, tasting myself on his tongue, and then, needing to catch my breath, I roll him off me.

“Oh my god,” I say again, stunned. He looks smugly at me, and I lazily smack him with my hand, rolling onto my side as my pussy throbs. He trails his hand up and down my back.

“Was that alright?” he asks. I nod, barely able to speak just yet. That was more than alright. I’ve never been with someone who seemed to enjoy eating me out like that. His intense gaze, his instincts not to break his rhythm when I was clearly ricocheting up and up, how strong he is… it’s like I’ve made him in a lab.

I tell him so, and he chuckles.

“Some lab,” he says dryly. He gets up, gets some water that I accept gratefully along with the remnants of my glass of wine, slurping it down while our breathing levels out. I pull a sheet around myself and visit the bathroom, and when I come back, he’s reclining on the bed, hair a halo, posture entire relaxed. I pull on some underwear and a shirt, suddenly feeling the chill of the open window—

“Shit, the curtains!” I exclaim, which are wide open for anyone across the street to see. Peeta begins to laugh.

“Hey, we have them a good show,” he says as I rush to slide them shut, mildly mortified and unwilling to look across at the building opposite in case there’s anyone there who may have seen.

“You jerk,” I say, climbing into bed. Peeta hauls me against him.

“You love it,” he murmurs, barely stifling a yawn. I put my forehead against his chest. He smells like sex. I’m sure I do too. We lie there for a moment, and then I look up at him.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” I ask. “With… us. Whatever we’re doing?”

“I’m definitely not disappointed,” he says. He pushes some hair out of my face. “Katniss, I don’t have the words to describe how okay I am with this. Us.” His thumb tugs on my bottom lip. “No pressure, remember?”

“No pressure,” I echo.

“You’re okay with it too, right?” he asks. “No regrets in the morning?” I burrow closer against him, wanting to sink into this post-orgasm cosiness that’s overcome me.

“No regrets,” I tell him. _No regrets,_ I tell myself.

The next morning, I wake with a jolt, thinking that we’ve missed our train. Instead, I roll over and find Peeta lying in a ray of sunlight, texting. A pulse of warmth slices through me as I remember last night. How can I regret _that_?

“We have almost two hours,” he says when he sees that I’m awake, voice rough with sleep. “Plenty of time.” I stretch out over the mattress, relieved. My mildly hungover brain supplies me with the memory of last night. The sounds he made. The way he made me feel. That is what I get rewarded with when I’m brave.

“What?” he asks. I sit up and kiss him. He tastes like mint. I probably don’t.

“Nothing,” I say. _No pressure. Just see where it goes. And if it keeps going in the same direction as it did last night, why would I question it?_

“I’m gonna get some breakfast,” he says. “Any requests?”

“Surprise me,” I say, not quite ready to get out of bed but one hundred percent looking forward to coffee and breakfast. He gets up, throws on a rumpled button-down and some shorts, and kisses me on the cheek before he leaves me alone to ponder, reminisce, and wonder how I managed to strike gold that day in Sant’Oreste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources:  
> [Florence/Cathedral](https://s1.it.atcdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/28-Florence.jpg)  
> [Uffizi Gallery](https://www.tripsavvy.com/thmb/l4fHYF8pVQkkX815TNDq2gr_Oew=/3865x2576/filters:fill%28auto,1%29/the-uffizi-gallery-in-florence--italy-511081519-598265d668e1a20011dedb14.jpg)  
> [Palazzo Pitti (1)](https://wevillas.com/imagew/1000/news/news/palazzo-pitti-a-firenze-orari-prezzi-e-descrizione-della-magnifica-reggia-80_1834_1596x982.jpg)  
> [Palazzo Pitti (2)](https://www.uffizi.it/en/pitti-palace/royal-apartments)  
> [Judith Slaying Holofernes (Gentileschi)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Slaying_Holofernes_\(Artemisia_Gentileschi,_Florence\)#/media/File:Judit_decapitando_a_Holofernes,_por_Artemisia_Gentileschi.jpg)  
> [Bacchus (Carravaggio)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchus_\(Caravaggio\)#/media/File:Baco,_por_Caravaggio.jpg)  
> [The Wrestlers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestlers_\(sculpture\)#/media/File:Xwres8.jpg)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has lots of travel and fluff BUT it also has a lot of angst, which has otherwise mostly been missing from this fic. Hopefully you don’t hate it too much and I promise we will be back to our usually scheduled programming in the next chapter. TW for a brief but significant mention of past child abuse.
> 
> Soundtrack: (Oh My Wonderful One) Tell Me You’re Mine by Jerry Vale, So This Is Love by Emile Pandolfi, Mary by Big Thief, and Red Bird by Florist.

**{5} Emilia-Romagna**

My original, sans-Peeta plans, of what I was going to do after Florence had always been rather loosely drawn. I knew I wanted to work my way to Venice, but how to get there? Detour to San Marino? Stick to the coast or stay inland? Hire a car and drive from one place to another, entirely at my own speed, taking in the countryside, or get on a train and zip straight through the Emilia-Romagna region, with its flat plains which are yet to be discovered by tourists?

It’s a good thing my plans aren’t certain, that I don’t feel any rush to get from one place to another, because that means that on the train from Florence to Bologna, the one clear part of ‘what’s next?’, Peeta and I get to spread out his giant map and pour over it. There are way worse ways to spend the trip.

It’s a two-hour train ride, plenty of time to plan and think and gaze out the window at the Apennines, the forest-covered peaks speckled with mountain towns, roads and rails vanishing in and out of the sunshine in tunnels bored into the rock. In many ways it looks remarkably like Panem, and for a few moments, as I gaze through the glass, chin in my hand, I get a pang of nostalgia for my childhood, for hiking and climbing and swimming in the mountains around my home with my dad, of that precious freedom and simplicity of being alive.

“My family wasn’t the outdoorsy type,” Peeta says. “Even our yard was just a lawn.”

“The most evil creation known on earth,” I say, and he laughs.

“I suppose you’re an advocate of wild gardens?”

“Of course. Or, even better, a nice big forest to get lost in.”

“Have you not seen a horror film ever? Forests are like, number one on the list of ‘do not enter’. Second only to cornfields.”

We eventually decide that we’re to spend the day in Bologna, visit the university, eat some tagliatelle, gaze longingly at some parmesan wheels, and then hire a car and go wherever we want. I tell Peeta that I’m taking him on a long, arduous hike at some point, and he grimaces at his heavy backpack and then looks beseechingly at me.

“How about I wait in the car?” he asks.

“All day?”

“I’m fine with that,” he deadpans, and I kick him under the little table, making him laugh.

It’s amazing how easy everything is with him. This morning, when I woke, I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive about whether things would be awkward after last night, but instead he got breakfast, and then we lay in bed for too long, and I got to stare at him staring at the layers in his croissant and marvelling at how delicate they were. I wanted to kiss him until he was breathless, I wanted to pin him onto the bed or have him pin me, I wanted to feel his hand in mine, on my waist, my hip. I just wanted him.

We packed our bags, thanked the concierge, and floated across Florence to the train station. On the platform, he kissed me before he went to get coffee, and I did that sweet thing I’ve seen other couples do—holding hands until the very last moment as he walked across the platform to the kiosk.

And then on the train, we’ve been playing footsy the whole time. I put my hand over his and he flipped his over and tangled our fingers together without even pausing as he read something off TripAdvisor.

It’s just easy. Easier than I’ve ever found it to be attentive and intimate with someone. _No pressure_ rings out in my head like a tolling bell. _No pressure. Just see what happens. Don’t overthink._

I text Jo, Gale, and Madge, updating them on things, assuring Gale that I’m alive. I send them all pictures of Pisa and Florence, including one of Peeta doing his dumb ‘leaning on the leaning tower’ pose.

**Gale:** _looks fun_

**Madge:** _looks AMAZING! How cute._

**Madge:** _@gale we are going to Florence Katniss has convinced me_

Jo, of course, speaks her mind.

**Jo:** _adorable_

**Jo:** _I had a stroppy little gale hawthorne barking at me about not telling him about your boy… how’d you break the news of your travelling fuck buddy?_

It’s classic Johanna, but this time there’s at least some truth to how she’s describing my relationship with Peeta. I glance at him, remembering last night, and my belly flutters at the sounds he made, the way he held my hips down, the way he watched me as I came. It’s… honestly the best sex I’ve ever had, and it’s not even fourth base. _Not yet_ , supplies a voice in my head, and that’s a thrill in itself.

I hadn’t planned on picking anyone up on my travels, and certainly not anyone for longer than a clandestine night. But Peeta has quickly become a constant that I don’t want to be without, and knowing that our relationship has developed from being strangers to friends with heated glances to the new development of the night before, I can only hope for and anticipate what comes next.

I really could be in a much worse situation right now, travelling through Italy with a kind, handsome guy who makes me feel good just by being close to him.

**Me:** _I was facetimeing him and madge and they spotted him in the background. Gale thought it was a break in lol_

**Me:** _and then he was mad, obvs. Madge was worried but she’s also a romantic so she wasn’t massively concerned once I assured her I was alright_

**Jo:** _I did say she was smarter than that manchild._

**Jo:** _do I even have to ask if he’s coming with u to wherever you’re going next? Bologna right?_

**Me:** _yep! Bologna and then we’ll see. Might rent a car. We’re on the train rn_

**Jo:** _you know you’re living like a romcom right now don’t you?_

**Me:** _hardly_

**Jo:** _oh please. Tell me you haven’t jumped his bones already_

**Me:** _if I say kind of will you leave me alone?_

**Jo:** _!!! knew it! how is he?_

**Me:** _I’m not rating him jo jesus_

**Jo:** _that means he’s good bc if he wasn’t you’d have said_

**Me:** _this is degrading_

**Jo:** _i am happy 4 u as your friend ciao ciao update me ;)_

I hide my phone in my bag and scrub my face with my hands.

“You alright?” Peeta asks, glancing up from his own phone.

“Remember Johanna?” I ask.

“The loud one?” he asks. I laugh. Of course the one thing that would stick out to him after meeting her once early one morning is that she’s a walking foghorn.

“Yes,” I say. I lift my eyebrows. “She’s just… being herself.”

Peeta hums. “Your friends seem nice. I’m glad they don’t entirely hate me for being your impromptu travel partner.”

“Is that how you class yourself?” I ask. “Is that how you describe me to _your_ friends?”

He laughs. “Hey, I’m not about labels,” he shrugs. “I mean, I’ve told a few that I’ve met you but I’m not, like, _gossiping_ or anything.”

“I take you as a gossip,” I say, squinting at him in observation. “I don’t mind if you tell all your friends about the beautiful, smart, amazing, multi-lingual solo traveller you met.”

I mean it as a joke, but of course he just grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles and says, entirely earnestly, “Well, I’d be telling the truth.”

We arrive in Bologna, stow our bags at the lockers at the station, and like any good tourist we find a place to eat first and foremost. It’s too early for lunch so we just get coffee, tea, and sweet pastries, which we eat outside a charming café-come-florist. It’s promising to be a warm day, but Bologna is walkable and not crowded, with plenty of places in the street to shelter in the shade. The buildings are all red brick, packed in closely in a way you’d be hard-pressed to find in the US, but everything is utterly charming. Plenty of pedestrianised areas, and a lot of young people around thanks to the city’s university, said to be the oldest in the world.

“Panem State was nothing like this,” I say wryly as we walk through courtyards and archways, staring at the fancy architecture.

“You mean Dante didn’t attend?” Peeta asks.

“Neither did Copernicus,” I shrug. “They missed out.”

We next go on a grand tour of various delis, trying various delicacies. Peeta asks about bread constantly, needing me to translate sometimes, and I learn more Italian words surrounding the art of bread making than I ever thought I’d need. We also find some cheese wheels, eating samples of aged parmesan that taste a million times better than anything I’ve had before.

For lunch we do indeed feast on tagliatelle, and then I hire a car to drive back west towards the Apennines. There’s not time to go deeper into the mountain range, but all I want is to walk up a nice hill and take in the view and be amidst the forest.

“There are wolves in these woods!” Peeta says when we pull over at the side of the road and get out, me packing some essentials, him fretting about whether the car is safe and whether we’re going to survive what looks to me like a well-marked out trail.

“We’ll be fine,” I insist, and he relents, following me into the trees.

It’s a lovely walk, not too strenuous, and Peeta needn’t worry about any wolves, bears, or anything else—he’s so heavy-footed that he scares off everything within a ten-mile radius.

“Are you deliberately trying to snap every twig?” I ask him after listening to him crunch and snap about fifteen times in a row.

He looks at me incredulously. “Are you actively _avoiding_ them?”

We make it up to the top of a low but craggy peak, and sit a while to watch the late afternoon sun.

“I shouldn’t have eaten all that bread,” Peeta says, laying on his back, hands over his stomach. I poke him in the side.

“To be fair, it was very good bread,” I say, and he groans melodramatically.

“When I eat that amount of bread and cheese I expect to remain stationary for the rest of the day,” he laments, and I smile fondly at him, leaning back on my hands and staring back out at the forest to enjoy the sun, the fresh air, the bird calls, and the relative quiet, apart from Peeta’s occasional complaints. I think of my dad, and then of my mom and Prim, and although that sharp tug of grief rings out over my body, it doesn’t weigh me down or steal my breath from me. I just close my eyes and feel the sunlight on my skin and Peeta’s thigh pressing against my hip and think that this is the country my parents met in, the one they always talked about, the one they had always wanted me to visit. I might not be able to do it with my family, but I’m simply glad to be here now.

Leaving time to get back to the car before dusk, the walk back down is one we do hand-in-hand. Peeta swings our arms and points at various trees and asks me to identify them. Then, out of the blue, he asks, “Is this a date?”

“A date?” I echo. I blink at him. “…I guess so.”

He beams at me. “I think this is the best date I’ve ever been on.”

“But you complained so much.”

“Hey, the complaints weren’t about you,” he points out. He squeezes my hand. “I just like your company,” he says, like it’s nothing. I have to stop and pull him down so I can kiss him, tugging at his shirt to keep him close, only pulling away when he’s breathing hard.

“What was that for?” he asks, ears going red.

“I just like your company,” I tease, walking on. After a moment, he hurries to catch up, elbowing me.

“Seems like you like something else too,” he quips, and I have to shove him, but then he’s grabbing me, laughing, pulling me towards him so he can kiss me back, mouth opening over mine, hot and slow, one hand at my neck, the other sliding under the back of my shirt, searing my skin. For a moment it’s like an out-of-body experience—I’m making out with a cute guy in the forests of Northern Italy after a day eating fine foods and eyeing beautiful buildings. Maybe Jo was onto something. Maybe I _have_ stumbled into a rom-com after all.

Then I return to my own body, to Peeta’s hands, his mouth, his face, and I gasp.

“We’re gonna have to find a place to stay in Bologna,” I murmur against his mouth. “Unless you wanna sleep in the car?”

He groans. “I can’t think of anything better than getting a crick in my neck,” he says, and I roll my eyes, and then he picks me up bridal style, and spins around until we’re dizzy.

“Don’t drop me!” I exclaim, arms around his neck.

“I’d never drop you,” he tells me, and I have to kiss him again for that.

Peeta drives back into the city, which glows and glitters under the great blue dome of the night sky. The setting sun shoots orange rays across the heavens, utterly beautiful. We tune into a local station, which plays a mix of European top-ten hits that neither of us have heard of, and do our best to sing and dance along as we descend out of the hills and forests and into Bologna. We park the car and head to grab some food. There’s a breeze, so we opt to sit inside for once, and are seated in a booth in a restaurant with huge, ugly chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. I help Peeta navigate the menu, and we spend the rest of the evening just talking. It’s as effortless as the moment I met him, our topics flowing into one another, never a dull moment.

“Is this still our date?” I ask him as we share dessert literally by candlelight.

“Depends who’s paying,” he says. I scowl at him.

“Notice I said _our_?” I say, and he steals the last forkful of cake without another word.

We split the bill, walk back to the car, and pick the first reasonably-priced hotel we find online. It’s cheap, cheerful, and good enough for the night. We lug our bags to our room, shower off the day, and then curl up in bed. I read my book for a bit, Peeta googles stuff about Italian bread making and periodically informs me on facts and statistics. I think the fresh air has tired us both out, because we go no further than some slow kisses before turning out the lights and snuggling up together.

“Why’d you keep the window open at night?” I ask him as we lie in the dark room. His arm around me is a comforting weight, as is the rise and fall of his chest, the patterns he traces on my spine.

“I don’t know,” he rumbles. “I guess it makes me feel stifled otherwise. And I like the fresh air.”

“Even in the winter?”

“Unless there’s snow on the ground, I’ll have it cracked at least a little.”

I burrow into his side, putting my icy feet on his calves. “It’s because you run hot,” I say, not letting him escape even as he curses and wriggles away from me. “You’re like a furnace.”

He relents and hugs me closer to him. “Glad to be of service, Katniss,” he murmurs, and a minute later, I’m out like a light, dreaming of him and his body against mine.

The next morning, after lazing in bed for too long, we exit the hotel, grab food from one of the delis we visited yesterday, and leave Bologna. Peeta drives again, much more cautious than I am, while I wrangle the maps. I connect my Spotify and blast some music that we can both sing to, and somehow am not at all surprised that Peeta knows all the words to _Slide Away_ by Miley Cyrus, _Bennie and the Jets_ by Elton John, and, to my surprise and enjoyment, _Pour It Up_ by Rihanna. He waves his pointed finger and fist pumps as he sings, voice breaking on some of the higher notes.

We head for Ferrara. It’s a leisurely hour’s drive through the Po valley, low-lying land consisting of vineyards and olive groves and fields of crops, mountains fading away behind us. We stop at a few small towns and villages on the way there, visiting some ruined churches and castles. There’s plenty of friendly locals, and we stop in a tiny village halfway there to eat lunch and stretch our legs. The café we stop at is built nearly over a river, and the table we sit at has a direct view down to the sparkling water. The sound of the mountain meltwater is a perfect accompaniment to our tea, coffee, sandwiches, and soup.

When we get back in the car and keep driving, I don’t hesitate in taking his hand. I don’t fear his rejection, don’t worry that he doesn’t want to touch me, hold me, be near me. It’s a powerful feeling. I now know why people talk about how being in love can completely divert all your attention and make you feel like the most powerful person on the planet.

 _In love._ The thought startles me so much that I inhale rather sharply.

“You good?” Peeta asks, looking briefly away from the road to me.

“Yeah,” I say, forcing my voice to be steady. “Yeah.”

 _Love._ Is that what I’m feeling? Surely not. It’s too soon. It’s been only a few weeks that I’ve even known Peeta, and sure, it’s been an intense time filled with tension and deep conversations and not once have I felt concerned or unsure or uncomfortable because of him, but that’s not enough to warrant love. Especially not being _in_ love. That is frankly ridiculous. It’s what Prim used to talk about. She would read sweeping romance novels or watch romantic movies and gush about true love, love at first sight, and lament that she, at just fifteen, hadn’t yet experienced it. I’d always promised her she would, while inside thinking it was a load of crap.

It has to be that what I feel for Peeta is the result of being in a sunny country with beautiful scenery and wine and fresh air and romantic cities and towns and now also the result of a good orgasm or two. Nothing more. No one can fall in love that quickly. It isn’t realistic or practical. Love is a bigger emotion than any of this can justify.

But… maybe I’m on my way there. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before. I loved my family of course, and my friends. But _this_ kind of love? A romance. A lust. Any prior relationship I’ve had hasn’t felt like this. Even with my last boyfriend, who I was with for over a year, I didn’t feel anything as intense at what I feel now. I don’t think the phrase _in love_ even popped into my brain.

I had assumed it simply wasn’t for me, if it existed at all. It was for films and literature and not for me, the ever-responsible Katniss Everdeen. I’m stubborn and irritable and carry with me a heft amount of baggage. Why would anyone be attracted to that, let alone love it? I am not built for love.

I look at Peeta. He’s concentrating on the road, sunglasses hooked in his shirt, pulling down the v of the buttons, his wavy hair buffeting around in the wind, his strong arms slashed by the sunlight pouring in through the window. I look away again when my chest starts to feel tight.

 _Shit_. Maybe this is something. Maybe it isn’t just a fling. Maybe it never was.

I try to bottle all these emotions and interior revelations down at risk of freaking Peeta out, because I’m absolutely sure he isn’t sharing these feelings. And how tragic is that—the one time I feel such overwhelming affection for a guy and he’s not on the same page. Hell, I’m in another book altogether.

This is when I wish more than anything that Prim was here. She’d loose her mind if I told her I was throwing words like _love_ around about a guy I met and decided to travel with on a whim. I wish I could talk to my mother, who despite our differences, would be able to give me sound advice. And I wish I had my father, who would acknowledge my fears and doubts but reassure me that being alive means feeling all those things.

I find myself tearing up before I realise and hastily wipe at my eyes.

“Katniss,” Peeta says quietly, his hand flickering to my forearm. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I whisper. I stare out at the vineyards we’re passing. _Why am I crying?_ Peeta doesn’t say anything for a moment and I wonder if I’ll look back and he’ll be grimacing in second-hand embarrassment and a spike of fear wedges itself in my chest.

“I don’t have any tissues,” Peeta says. I realise he’s been patting down his pockets in search, one hand still on the wheel. I laugh and it bubbles out of my throat in an ugly sound.

“It’s alright,” I say. “I’m just—”

“Having a cry?” he asks, zero judgement in his tone.

“Yeah,” I croak. It’s not like I can say _I’m just tussling with my feelings for you and with my grief for my family, don’t mind me._

“Hey, I get it,” he murmurs. “Nothing like a good cry sometimes. Do you want me to put on some sad music or just be quiet?”

I take in a shuddering breath. “Just hold my hand,” I say, and his face crumples something heart-breaking.

“Okay,” he murmurs, and he does so. I look back out through the window and calm down, and even when I’ve stopped crying and have pulled out my phone to check where we are, eyes dry, breathing levelled out, he doesn’t let go.

We make it to Ferrara in good time, parking, grabbing some food, and beginning a walk through the city. It’s not as nice as Rome or Florence or Bologna, but it’s still charming, with bridges spanning the river, fancy cathedrals and blocky red-brick Castle Estense with its moat, and the Po River just north of the city. After an hour or two wandering around, we drive along a slightly overgrown road adjacent to the river until we find a little patch of river bank that’s quiet so we can picnic and relax.

“The Veneto region is literally on the other side of the Po,” I say, dangling my feet in the cool water.

“I’m excited for Venice,” Peeta says. “Are we definitely going on a gondola?”

“It wouldn’t be Venice without a gondola ride,” I say.

I wonder if he’s going to ask about what happened in the car, and eventually he does.

“You know you can talk to me if you want to,” he says. We’re both lying on our backs in the grass, just staring up at the blue sky above. I look across at him. He looks at me and gives me a meaningful smile. “I just—no matter what it is, you know? I’m happy to listen.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I mean it. I also mean it when I add, “You can talk to me too.” I think of what Gale said. A fatal bakery fire. It turns the pit of my stomach to even think about. “I know I kind of dumped some stuff on you back in Rome.”

“Hey, hey, you didn’t,” Peeta says. “I was just worried I was getting in the way or something.”

“You weren’t. You aren’t.”

He nods. I take his hand and bring it to my chest, clasping it in both of mine.

“You’re really nice, Peeta,” I say. He smiles at me.

“Thanks.” A beat. “You’re honestly kind of prickly,” he says, deadpan, and I gape, shoving him, and he laughs. “I thought this was honesty hour!” he cries. “You said I could talk to you about anything!”

“I didn’t mean me!” I exclaim, but my smile kind of softens my words. “Asshole,” I say, and he snorts.

“I like that you’re prickly,” he says. “I’m such a pushover.”

“I can hardly believe that.”

“No, I am.” He looks serious for a moment, brows furrowing. “I let people push me around. Even when I know I shouldn’t let them.” He swallows. “I’m working on it.”

“Have _I_ pushed you around?” I ask, suddenly worried that maybe, just maybe, from his perspective, I’m the vaguely unhinged, grief-stricken chick who’s hauled him along for a tour de Italy.

“No,” he says. “At least, not in a way I didn’t want.”

I put my hand on his cheek, angle his face so he’s looking at me again. His eyes are the exact same blue as the sky.

“You’re not a pushover, Peeta. You’re kind and people exploit that. That’s not your fault.”

He leans into my palm. Says, all quiet, “I know.”

That makes my heart hurt, seeing him vulnerable like this. I’ve only thought of him as kind and funny and smart. I haven’t had any ulterior motives, so I suppose there’s been no reason to exploit him. But I think of Prim, who was always good and kind, and how she didn’t always see the bad people had in them. She said I was just cynical, I said I was just being practical. I’ve been actively trying to be less distrustful of people ever since she died, knowing it was something she wanted me to work on. And here comes Peeta, who turns out to be working on trusting that people aren’t going to take advantage of him.

We’re chalk and cheese in a lot of ways. Working on ourselves in opposite directions. But I suppose we both have to try and learn that people aren’t always bad, even if it’s just in our own ways, for our own reasons.

“Travelling alone has been partly to force myself to meet other people, push myself out of my comfort zone,” I admit. “I knew that if I didn’t go and do something, I’d get stuck in a rut. I guess I’ve gone a bit over the top with it all by travelling with a stranger.”

Peeta smiles. “I’m not a stranger anymore am I?”

“No,” I say. Because he’s not. “I still have plenty to learn about you though.”

“I don’t mind sharing.”

I prop myself up on my elbow, play with the buttons on his shirt. In the sunlight he absolutely glows. “Why’d you really decide to travel?” I ask.

“Had a shitty few years,” he explains. “Thought it would be a good idea to do something for me and only me. Be a bit selfish.”

“How’s it worked out so far?”

“Pretty good. Better than I could’ve imagined, actually.”

I roll my eyes. He puts his arms around me and pulls me on top of him. “I wake up some mornings and wonder if I’m actually dreaming.”

“You’re so sentimental.”

“I’m a romantic—so sue me,” he murmurs. I push his baseball cap back and lean down to kiss him, smoothing my hand through his vaguely sweaty hair. When we pull apart, he smiles at me so serenely that my brain automatically responds with the words _romantic romantic romantic!_ and I have to push the thoughts away.

“You good with staying in Ferrera for the night?” I ask. He hums.

“I think I can be persuaded.”

Persuaded turns out to be a heated return drive into Ferrera. In revenge for the train ride back from Pisa, I put my hand on his thigh as he drives, just to watch his ears and neck go red. We find a hotel, and in the elevator he backs me into the corner and kisses me until I feel weak at the knees, and then he crowds me into our room and slides his hand in between my thighs and makes me come. I return the favour, heart pounding, head spinning.

“What the fuck,” he says after, head tilted back on the bed. I kiss his throat. I feel powerful and turned on and confident and never want it to end. I don’t even mind, in moments like this, the whiplash I’m experiencing between burning desire and the paralysing possibility of romance. I need to focus on how good it feels right _now_ , and when I inevitably mess this up, I’ll be able to remember this, at least.

“Just making sure you’re persuaded,” I say, and he creaks slightly, eyes fluttering closed as he catches his breath.

We may or may not take a nap, then, and when we awaken, we look up the best restaurants in the area and book a table. I decide that I want to dress up, rummaging through my suitcase for the few fancier items I bought with me.

“I don’t have anything nice,” Peeta laments.

“That’s not my problem,” I say from the bathroom, where I’m buffing foundation into my face the way Madge taught me.

A minute later, I hear the door to our room open and shut, and I stick my head through and find that Peeta is gone. I can’t think of any reason to be alarmed, so just shrug it off. I put some music on and keep getting ready, and after ten minutes, I call Jo.

“Shit, you look nice,” she says on greeting. I’m in a navy blue dress with a neckline which makes my flat chest look decent. It’s one of my favourite outfits, and I’ve only worn it once before. In comparison, Jo’s still in her work gear, a rather fetching green shirt and a pair of overalls, her hair spiked up around her head. “What’s the occasion?”

“Going to dinner with Peeta,” I say. “We’re in Ferrara for the night.”

“How is it?” she asks, and I tell her. In response, she tells me about her day of sweating and heavy lifting and glowers at me.

“It’s so not fair that you get to go and travel Italy with a hottie and I’m just sat around here.”

“There’s plenty of people in Italy, Jo. You can come visit if you want,” I remind her. She narrows her eyes.

“You know what, I just might take a few weeks off and come and harass you. See how smug you are when I’m there too, brainless.” I laugh and she shakes her head. “So how’s your fuck buddy?” she asks, even though it looks like she’s in public.

“He’s not,” I say, hardly convincingly.

“By the amount of effort you’re putting into your appearance I’d say that’s what you’re aiming for,” she deadpans. “Tell me, bitch, because I know you’re not telling your childhood best friend about the nasty shit you’re getting up to.”

I blanch at the idea of telling Gale any of this. I’m sure somewhere he figures that kind of thing has or will happen, but the thought of Gale thinking about _that_ is about as horrifying as me thinking about Gale in bed—he’s a brother to me. I can’t—I just can’t.

So I do tell Jo. Not in detail, but enough.

“And now you’re sealing the deal?” she asks, lifting her hand and miming a blowjob.

“Jo, stop,” I say, face burning. She reads right through me of course.

“Oh! So you’ve already sucked his dick?”

“Jo!” I exclaim. “Oh my god.”

“I know that’s not something you always enjoy,” she speculates. “Which makes me think that either he’s even hotter in person… or maybe because he rocked your world first and you felt like you just _had_ to return the favour?”

“Look—I just wanted to, okay,” I say, flustered. “He’s cute and nice and really hot and like. I wanted to.”

Jo’s mouth is wide open. Then she laughs loudly and obnoxiously. “I was about to ask if you were really the Katniss Everdeen I know, but the past few months have shown me you can be impulsive when you want to be.”

“It’s different with him,” I shrug.

“Yeah, it fucking looks like it.”

“No. As in. I like him. A lot.” I put my hand over my face. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I never would’ve thought that I would be doing something like this, but I’m into him.”

“And he’s into you, apparently,” Jo points out. “You never give yourself credit.”

“For what?” I grimace.

“For being hot,” Jo says. “Seriously, brainless. You’re hot. Dudes seem to like it when chicks don’t realise how hot they are.”

“He’s not just _some_ _dude_.”

“Wow, why don’t you just marry him?” Jo says. I laugh awkwardly, and thankfully she powers on without giving me the chance to respond. “You lucky bitch. You deserve all of this and I’m happy for you but it’s so not fair,” she says. “I honestly don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

I don’t really know either. If you had told me five or even one year ago that I’d be doing this, I would have laughed. This is out of character for me, I guess, but considering what else I’ve done with Peeta with regards to inviting him to share my car and hotel room with me after knowing him for less than half a day, this was inevitable really. It’s just an extra bonus that he’s as physically attracted to me as I am to him.

The beep of the key card in the door makes me jump.

“He’s back!” I hiss. Jo begins yelling about foreplay and I hastily hang up.

“Where’d you go?” I ask Peeta, peering out of the bathroom. My heart is pounding from his sudden return and from the prospect of tonight which has been definitely amplified by Jo, and it doesn’t help that Peeta walks into the room in a crisp white shirt and a pair of navy blue pressed slacks which make his ass look great.

“You look nice,” I say, though nice is a definitely an understatement.

“There’s a menswear store a few blocks away,” he explains, a bit out of breath. “I wanted to dress up for you.”

My heart grows another size. “You didn’t have to buy all this just because I want to dress up,” I say, feeling guilty.

“You’ve seen literally everything in my wardrobe,” Peeta says, like it’s nothing. “I figured I should dress up as well.” He looks at me properly. “I mean—I haven’t seen _that_ before, so…” He steps closer, eyes darting up and down. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” I say. I step back before he can properly get to me. “I’m still getting ready,” I say, batting him away.

Fifteen minutes later we head out. I pull on a pair of heels which have been otherwise getting squished at the bottom of my suitcase. I’m not a heels person, but tonight feels special, and Peeta went out a bought a suit, for god’s sake. I have to make equal effort.

I feel all fluttery and nervous as we walk out of the hotel and into the warm evening light. Peeta looks effortlessly good, golden in the dusk, the shirt and pants perfectly cut to this body. He’s been clean-shaven for most of the time I’ve known him, but he’s let it grow out a little over the last few days, and he looks good both ways. In the hotel room he used some mousse to push his hair back from his face, and it sits in casually styled waves across his head. I’ve even taken my hair down and applied some tinted lip balm, so it feels like tonight is an _event_.

“This is definitely a date,” Peeta says as we walk down the street. That much is clear to me. This couldn’t be anything else.

 _No pressure_. I try to remember that, but it’s hard. I’ve had a hundred meals with Peeta at this point, with company and alone, junk food and fancy food, cooked at home or out at cafes and restaurants. But apart from the meal with Finnick and Annie, we haven’t been this dressed up. This is dressing up for each other.

 _This_ , my head supplies me, _is dressing up because tonight is more than a dinner._

I think of his hand on my thigh, his lips on my neck, his body against mine. I guess tonight is more. _More_.

“Katniss,” Peeta says, hand on the small of my back. “Did you hear what I said?”

I shake my head no. _No, I didn’t, because I was thinking about how attractive you are._

Peeta looks at me, a heated gaze I can now recognise. My heart leaps. I guess I’m not alone in thinking about that after all.

Dinner is torture of the sweetest kind. We have a starter and a main and share a desert. We share a bottle of wine. I do the talking while Peeta just smiles winningly and says _grazie_ or _ciao._ The restaurant is buzzing with other patrons, mostly couples or small groups, the light low, the music jazzy and seductive. We pay the bill and leave, walking hand-in-hand down streets quietly busy with people at bars and restaurants. We pick up another bottle of wine. I take a picture of Peeta because how can I not. And then we head back to the hotel at the late time of nine pm.

My heart is beating out of my chest as we ride the elevator up to our floor. Peeta doesn’t say anything to me or do anything. I grip the wine bottle like it’ll stop me from losing my mind. He opens the door to our room and I go and turn on the lamps, and he produces wine glasses from the cabinet against the wall and pops the bottle. I kick off my shoes and prop open the window. I find some music to break the quiet. I turn around and Peeta offers me a glass. I’m not drunk, and I don’t intend to be. But I know that I don’t want my nerves to get in the way tonight. They’re not bad nerves, but they’re nerves nevertheless.

We clink glasses and drink.

“So,” Peeta says. “This has been a pretty good second date.”

“Yeah,” I say, already feeling a bit out of breath. I gulp down more wine. He’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m being eaten alive. He just stands there, drinking wine, looking like a sin. His hair has fallen out of the mousse by now, and as expected, his shirt has come undone by an additional button. He looks at my chest at least twice. Wets his lips. I wonder whether he realises that he’s perfected his seduction technique, that just standing there with him is making me feel like I’m burning from the inside out.

I drain my wine. He watches me. I set the glass down and step closer to him.

“Finish your wine, Peeta,” I say, and he does as I ask. Once he’s done, I take the glass and set it aside and begin unbuttoning his shirt. “Thanks for dressing up for me,” I murmur. “You look really good.”

His hands slide to my hips. “You’ve been holding this out on me?” he asks lowly.

“Needed a proper occasion,” I shrug. He smirks.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say. I pull his shirt out of his slacks and push it down his arms. His chest rises and falls in front of me, sculpted without being obnoxious, a smattering of hair over his pecs. I trail my hand over his stomach, pull at his waistband, look up at him.

“You’re really good looking,” I say. He raises an eyebrow.

“You’re only saying that ‘cus you got my shirt off,” he says. I grin.

“It’s the truth,” I say, and then I push up on my toes and slide one hand around the back of his neck and kiss him.

It’s slow and wet and he immediately tightens his arms around me, hauling me against him. Little displays of his strength seriously do something to me, and I gasp against his mouth. He picks me up properly, hands sliding under my thighs, and I wrap my legs around him, kissing him harder. He sits down on the bed without breaking the kiss, one hand at the small of my back to pull me more securely against him.

After a minute or so, he pulls at my dress.

“There’s a zip,” I say, and he finds it, pulling it down across my spine. The material goes slack and he shifts back as I let it fall down my shoulders, exposing my bare chest. With the dress riding up over my thighs and bunching around my hips, it’s just getting in the way, so I just pull it off and toss it aside.

“You’re beautiful, Katniss,” he says, eyes dark as he takes me in. His hands scuffs up my side, stops just below my breasts.

“You can touch me,” I say. That’s all I want him to do. “Touch me, Peeta.”

He cups my breast in his hand, thumbing my nipple, and with the other hand he puts a little pressure on my jaw to make me tilt my head back, so he can mouth slow, wet kisses down my neck, across my collarbones, and then finally to my chest. I put my arms over his shoulders and by the first touch of his teeth to my nipple, I rock my hips against his, feeling him growing hard in his nice slacks.

“If you could fucking see yourself…” he murmurs, and my back arches into his mouth. Jesus. His hands all over me, mine gripping his shoulders. I roll my hips, grind down against him, and one of his hands dips down to my ass, pulling me against him.

“Get out of these,” I breathe, tugging at his slacks. “Come on.”

In one smooth move, he flips me over, so he’s above me, standing, unbuckling, eyes dark as he stares at me. I ache between my thighs, my head spins, and I bite my lip as I watch him.

“You want a show?” he asks, smiling out of the corner of his mouth as he pushes his slacks down.

“I want you to come here,” I say, wanting him close to me again. He kicks his brand new pants away and does as I ask, crawling over me, fitting one of his thighs between mine as we roll against each other.

“What do you want, Katniss?” he asks, pulling back just slightly so he can look at me.

“I want you,” I pant. “I want you, Peeta. I want this.”

“You want to go all the way?” he asks.

“Yes!” I moan, face flaming. “Yes, yes, I do.”

“Just making sure,” he says, kissing me again.

I pull back suddenly. “Shit, do you have protection?” I ask, because as much as I like Peeta and as much as I really, really want this, I’m not going to be stupid. I guess I should have planned better.

“Yeah,” he says, reaching over to his bag. I admire the lines of his body, laugh slightly at the tan lines on his arms and thighs that show that he’s usually much paler than this, and then he’s back with condoms and a bottle of lube.

“You’re prepared,” I comment wryly and he shoots me a look.

“You’d rather I wasn’t?” he asks, ripping over the packet with his teeth.

I tense when I feel his cock brushing against me, and he says my name. I grip the sheets in one hand and put the other on his forearm where he’s leaning over me.

“I want to feel you inside me,” I say, feeling drunk on him. I feel his head at my entrance and then he begins pushing in, and I gasp, and his breathing stutters, and he keeps sinking in, deeper and deeper, stretching me, and I force myself to relax. He kisses me, distracting me, and I groan when he bottoms out, breath hot against my skin.

“Ugh, _fuck_ , Katniss,” he stutters. I moan his name. “You’re so tight,” he grunts, and I twist one hand in his hair, the other digging in at his side. After a minute, I shift my hips, encouraging him to move. We quickly get into a steady rhythm, and I can’t help the moans that escape me, the yelps, the cries of his name. It seems to spur him on, and then he stops, shifts back slightly.

“What do you like?” he says. I moan, tightening around him. Apparently I also have a thing for competency. When I don’t give him a satisfactory answer, he slowly pulls out and then sinks back into me. “I want to know, Katniss,” he says. “Tell me what you like.”

He kisses my neck, my chest, thrusts again, grinds deep.

Embarrassment threatens to stop me from saying anything, but his mouth on me makes me speak.

“I—I like when you’re over me,” I shudder. “I like how big you are, how strong you are.”

Peeta’s eyes widen.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, his chest rising hugely, and he begins thrusting again, moving in closer so he can brace himself over me on his elbows and grind his hips. It’s exactly what I wanted, to feel overwhelmed by him, and I cry out with every thrust, moan every time his hips meet mine, tug on his hair with one hand because I’ve already noticed that he likes it, yelp at the hard thrust he gives when I do, and dig my nails into his side when he begins thrusting with purpose.

I probably sound like a porn star but I can’t help it, pleasure surging through my entire body. He’s at just the right angle, sliding against my clit, and when he kisses me, tasting like the chocolate in our dessert and the wine we’ve been drinking, I come hard, mouth falling open.

“Holy shit,” Peeta says, hips faltering briefly as I spasm around him, and then he keeps going, and I gasp his name as his movements drag out my pleasure, and then he grunts, gasps out that he’s going to come, and I drag my teeth over his shoulder, pressing my chest against his. He comes, his groans music to my ears.

“Fuck, Peeta,” I say. He twitches inside me, a dead weight on top of me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, pushing himself up on one arm. His hair is a mess, his lips swollen, his eyes hooded.

“Yeah,” I say, gasping for breath. He pulls out, disposes of the condom, and we lie there panting together. My arm flops out, hand hitting his chest.

“Sex on the second date?” I ask, because my post-orgasm brain wants to make fun of him for rocking my world, apparently.

“I’m easy, what can I say?” he replies. He sounds all rough and gravelly and I want to live in that sound, in this feeling, in this moment. Instead I just listen to him breathing and try not to fall asleep.

Eventually I get up and go to the bathroom. I also pour us some water and offer him a glass. He sits up to drink, and I think to myself that while I _feel_ fucked out, he looks like it. He has bruises from my mouth on his neck.

I finish the water and then pour more wine, crawling back into bed beside him. We clink glasses. We don’t manage to finish them before we’re on each other again.

The next morning I wake up feeling beard burn on my chest and an ache between my thighs. It’s a good ache, and when Peeta pulls me on top of him and encourages me to grind down, fingers working at me until I come, I find it hard to believe that I ever thought this would never happen, that there was ever a moment where I didn’t think about him in this capacity.

We leave Ferrara for Padua, our final stop before Venice. I drive, Peeta dozes in the passenger seat. I admire the bruises on his neck, try to drag my mind out of the gutter to little avail. Jo was right, Damnit.

In a town halfway between Ferrara and Padua, we stop to get fuel and walk around. It’s not busy, but has plaques everywhere describing how the place was almost entirely destroyed in the World Wars. It’s jam-packed with history but near-empty of tourists, and it almost feels like we have the place to ourselves as we wander around.

Peeta spies an old-fashioned hotel with a spire and insists we have to get to the top of it.

“Imagine the views!” he says, trying to convince me to engage in some breaking and entering in a foreign country. “Don’t be a square, Katniss!”

I scoff. “You’re gonna get us put in prison.”

“We’d be together, it would be so nice,” he counters. Then he tugs on my hand and pulls me up the hotel steps.

“We’ll go up a few floors,” I say. “That’s it.”

We head inside and it’s deserted, every corridor and foyer empty of people. It’s the middle of the day, and yet there is no one behind the front desk, no staff running around, no luggage or guests to be seen. So we ascend up and up through this old 60s-style hotel until we find a little door that says _staff entry only_ and Peeta gets this gleam in his eye and just… shoulders the door open.

I wince, expecting alarms and angry Italians demanding why two American tourists are breaking down their doors, but it’s just blissful silence, which I suppose I should have expected, given the silence so far.

“Magnifique,” Peeta says, grinning at me.

“That’s French,” I tell him. “And I don’t like this troublemaking streak you’ve got going on all of a sudden.”

“Oh, come on,” he says. “I think it’ll be worth it.”

So I follow him, and find myself in a dingy corridor and going up a series of rickety ladders and staircases, up and up, past coils of cables and apparently unfinished maintenance work, until we reach a metal trapdoor that for some ungodly reason just opens without an issue.

“I thought you were afraid of heights!” I hiss as he hefts the door open, revealing a shock of blue sky.

“Not when I’m safe inside a building!” he replies, climbing through and sticking his hand down to help me up. I eye the creaking ladder. _Safe my ass_.

I climb through and find myself on a narrow walkway that circles the top of the spire, its reddish-brown tiles warm in the day’s sun. The huge letters proclaiming the hotel’s name are losing their paint and rusting, and Peeta wonders aloud if we could pry off the ‘p’ and take it home.

“And hide it under your shirt?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

But, I’ll admit, he is right about the view. It’s stunning, from a vantage point few others get to access, and it’s all to ourselves.

“Worth it?” he asks as I poke my head through the letter O and peer down the sloping roof and out to the narrow streets and piazzas down below.

“Yes,” I say. Then I lean back. “I dare you to look.”

He does, quickly rearing back, eyes bugging.

“Okay,” he says. “I take back what I said about being safe in buildings. This place is definitely not up to code.”

Of course I then make him stay for a bevy of photos. I take them of the city itself, of him, of me, and, gingerly propping my camera on the ledge and praying for no opportunistic birds or gusts of wind, we take a self-timed photo, arms around each other, with the city behind us.

“This was a good idea,” I say, looking up at him once the camera clicks.

“I’m glad you think so,” he replies, his voice soft. I lean up slightly to kiss him, feeling him smile against my mouth. I murmur _chicken_ , and he laughs. I distantly think of how grateful I am that after crossing a rather significant line in our relationship, we haven’t lost this teasing, joking side of things. I don’t feel embarrassed about anything, don’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. It’s just a continuation of before, with the added knowledge of knowing how good he is in bed left to simmer in the back of my head.

We manage to get down from the roof and through the hotel without meeting trouble, and once we’re down in the street, I crane my neck to look back up at how high up we were. I never would have thought about trying to get up there if I was by myself.

We reach Padua next. It’s gorgeous and we decide to waltz around the city before we locate the villa we booked. I think we both come to the conclusion that we’re probably going to end up staying at the villa rather than actually going into Padua, so we might as well make some effort while we’re here. We marvel at the cathedral, which, like every other Italian cathedral we’ve seen, is stunning. Then we marvel at il Prato, the huge city square filled with markets and stores and canal lined with statues. We stop to get lunch and I wonder if I’m going to get delirious I’m in such a good mood.

In the late afternoon, we pick up some groceries to last us the next few days, and then I finally drive us out to the villa. You’d never think it was anywhere near a bustling city like Padua, set back from the road amidst woodland, vineyards, and volcanic hills as it is, and even though it was a rather lucky last-minute booking on our part, it’s perfect. Comfortably small, a single floor, definitely only for couples, a stout old building converted into a holiday home. The floors are all cool tile, the ceilings criss-crossed with beams, the bed comfy, the wifi decent. A grand outdoor area shaded by fig and eucalyptus trees. A few acres of hilly land attached that is used by a local farmer to grow olives but is free for guests to wander around. And an actual pool: a gleaming, heated-by-the-sun square of turquoise water with loungers on the tiles and a splendid view over the olive trees.

“Is this for real?” Peeta asks.

“I know,” I say, giddy. How could this day get any better?

We unpack half-heartedly and immediately jump into the pool. Peeta gets out first but comes back with a pitcher and glasses, and then it’s just imbibing with crisp, fresh cocktails and gliding back and forth under the sun. I bring out a book to read under one of the umbrellas by the loungers, and Peeta sketches endlessly. It’s perfect. This whole day has been perfect.

It starts to fall apart, though, and I don’t realise until later that it starts with a phone call.

Peeta’s phone, specifically. I’m sipping my drink and watching the pool water ripple in the faint breeze, and the jarring beeping makes me jump. Peeta sets down his pencil and sketchpad and picks the device up. I immediately notice how his entire body goes stiff.

“I’ve have to take this,” he says, and he’s up and walking back towards the villa before I can say a single word.

He doesn’t come back for almost an hour. Or rather, he doesn’t come back at all, and I only find him when I go and look for him, finding him sat in the cool, dim kitchen staring at his cell phone like it’s just delivered some bad news.

“Are you alright?” I ask. “I was getting lonely out there.”

“Yeah,” he says, evidently distracted. “Sorry. I just—it was my brother. Had to pick up.”

I want to rub his shoulder or touch his hand or something but I don’t. I furrow my brow.

“Is everything okay?” I ask. Peeta clears his throat. Looks at me.

“Yeah,” he says, convincing no one. “I’ll come back out in a minute.”

“Alright,” I say, sensing that he needs the space. I swap to a new book, having finished the other, and go back outside. But I can’t even open it to the first page, too distracted by the sudden downer on the afternoon. Peeta looked upset and irritated and the atmosphere in the kitchen was different. It felt wrong, especially given the events of the last few days, and especially since he’s always been chipper and sunny in his disposition since the moment I met him. Even when we touched on deeper subjects in our long conversations, there was always a degree of positivity in his tone.

I text Madge. I text Gale. I text Johanna. I sit there and just think. I slide into the pool and swim a few laps. I tell myself that if something is wrong, Peeta will tell me. That even if he doesn’t, that’s his choice.

He does come out eventually, getting into the pool and swimming over.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to be short with you back there.”

“You weren’t,” I tell him. “Has something happened with your brother?”

“No, no,” Peeta says. I put my hands on his forearms as we slowly spin through the water. “It’s just crappy family drama,” he explains. “I’ve been ignoring it for like, four months. I shouldn’t have but I did. I left to get away from it, so…” he shrugs.

“There’s nothing wrong with not wanting that kind of thing to ruin your time abroad,” I say quietly. He nods.

“Still,” he says. “I don’t mean to get grumpy.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re always in a good mood. I was starting to get suspicious.”

He smiles at me, even though his eyes are still tinged with something other than happiness, and he hugs me close, putting his nose in the crook my shoulder and inhaling.

“You smell nice,” he says. I hug him back. He smells like sunlight.

Pre-phone call, I would have assumed that our first evening in the villa would be spent in much the same way as we did our night in Ferrara. But apart from some kisses and touches while we cook dinner and eat it out on the patio, we end up on the couch watching TV and going to bed kind of early. Peeta’s mind is clearly elsewhere. He’s flatter, almost. Whatever he talked about with his brother has clearly stirred up enough shit that the idea of drinks and skinny dipping isn’t at all appealing to him.

In bed, I curl up next to him and twist his hair around my finger again and again and wait for him to go to sleep. He apologises for being boring. I tell him he’s not being boring. He kisses me, I kiss him back.

“Go to sleep, Peeta,” I say. “Tomorrow is a new day.”

I’m right, of course, and I wake to sunlight streaming in and Peeta snoring softly as he lies on his stomach beside me. He looks all soft and well-rested, and I watch him for a while until he wakes up.

“Freak,” he mutters, groaning as he buries his face in the pillow. I grin.

“You like it,” I say, and one eye flickers open before he’s grabbing me and hauling me to him. I laugh as he marks wet kisses all over my face and neck, batting at him, and eventually he slides his thigh in between mine and the atmosphere in the changes considerably. I kiss him, not caring about morning breath, hopeful for a relaxing day doing little more than lying about and cooking nice food.

It starts out that way, and I begin to hope that the odd mood Peeta was dropped into has passed by and won’t bother us again. But he keeps checking his phone while we eat breakfast, sit by the pool, and by midday, I’m perturbed by his change in attitude. Apparently gone is the otherwise sunny guy I’ve known since Sant’Oreste. Now he’s grey and frowning, not talking to me but in clipped tones, and putting a dampener on my mood too. That of course makes me feel like a dick, because he’s obviously been upset by something, but before long, I can feel my own worries and stresses beginning to bubble up.

Everything is thrown off, and suddenly the easily orbit we’ve had around each other becomes disjointed, and we begin to clash. I leave dirty cooking utensils on the side instead of the sink and he glowers at them but says nothing. His phone keeps buzzing and interrupting my efforts at reading my book or napping, so in the end I just get up and go and sit inside instead.

I try to rationalise. It’s been a lot of travel in a short amount of time, and we’ve been in close proximity for all of it. We haven’t had any clashes like this so far, so surely we’re due one. Add that our relationship has been kind of ill-defined and yet progressing rather quickly, plus my own worries about how I feel about Peeta and how he feels about me and whether this is a good idea or a big mistake, and _now_ the phone call. Even I can see the wave of irritation and stress surging towards us.

After a rather quiet lunch, I try to put a brief, comforting hand on Peeta’s side as I pass him in the kitchen. He jerks away and I feel my stubborn temper flare.

“Fine,” I snap, turning and walking back outside. _And just yesterday you were panicking about love_ , says a masochistic voice in my head.

“Katniss, jesus,” Peeta says, voice fading as I keep walking. He comes after me, says, “Stop, Katniss, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it?” I ask, whirling around, pushing my sunglasses onto the top of my head. He flounders in the doorway. I raise an eyebrow. “If you want me to leave you alone, just tell me, but don’t give me the silent treatment over something you’re dealing with. I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” he says. “Not with this.”

I say nothing.

He squints at me. “I don’t _mean_ to give you the silent treatment—”

“But you are. If you want space, I’ll give you space. Just don’t make me feel like you don’t want me anywhere near you.”

“Where is this coming from? When have I done that?” he asks. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing the exact opposite most of the time we’ve been here and if I recall you were pretty happy about it. Why’re you making me out to be the bad guy here?”

“‘Cus you’re not, right? I am,” I cry, on a roll now, folding my arms over my chest. I can feel my own upset bubbling up. All my insecurities. All my ridiculous fears about what exactly is going on here, between us. It feels wrong that this moment right now feels like one of the most clear-cut aspects—an argument, rather than flirting but shying away from commitment, heated looks and touches even though I still can’t be sure if this is actually going to go anywhere.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Peeta says calmly, and my mouth drops open.

“This is entirely reasonable!” I exclaim. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of us, and you said no pressure but I don’t know what’s going on here. What do you want?”

“What do _I_ want?” Peeta asks. “I feel like I’ve fairly clear about what I want, Katniss. You’re the one who’s so hard to read. Talking about dates and shit in this abstract way and then refusing to commit to anything with me.”

“ _Commit_?” I ask. “We hardly know each other! It’s been what—a few weeks? A month?”

“So? I’m still adult enough to figure out when I like someone.”

“You know that’s not how things go.”

“‘How things go?’ What things?”

“We barely know each other. Don’t act like you know me and I won’t pretend to know you and understand anything you’re dealing with.”

“I don’t know you, Katniss. You’re right. That’s part of the problem. You gotta talk to me about how you feel. I’m not going reject you.”

Even though that hits deep, I snap, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

He scoffs. “Katniss, I have no idea what I’m doing either. It doesn’t help that you’re acting like people can’t fall—” he stops, biting off the word.

I stare at him, ribcage crushing my lungs and stealing away my breath. He closes his eyes briefly and when he opens them again, his face has gone completely neutral.

“I like you, Katniss, okay? I know it’s kind of fast, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sorry if you feel like I’ve been blocking you out but I’m dealing with my own shit at the moment and I’d rather not drag this—” he gestures between us, “—into it as well. This has been so perfect. It’s been a dream. Just let me deal with this by myself, alright? I don’t want your help with this.”

I’m reeling. Unable to keep up with what I said, what he said, what he almost said. With how I’ve managed to take his personal anguish and turn it into an argument about us. About me. “Fine,” I say. “Well, come and get me when you decide you want to talk to me again.”

It’s childish, I know, and the way he says my name, disappointed and angry all at once, as I turn and walk away, makes me feel even worse, but I have to get out of his sight before I do something stupid like cry.

I go and sit by the pool, dangling my feet in the water and trying to calm down. I don’t want to talk to him right now, because I know I won’t be able to do so without worrying about whatever has made him so upset, which has already prompted my own insecurities about whether he actually likes me and fears about losing loved ones to ricochet forward in my mind until they’re a pressing weight. And then he says all _that_ and I don’t know how to deal with it. Shutting him down is selfish but I couldn’t help it. And now I just feel regret.

It’s not made any better when I hear footsteps on gravel as Peeta walks out of the villa to the car, starts the engine, and drives off.

“Fuck,” I say to myself when the noise of the car fades away completely, leaving me utterly alone.

I call Johanna. I’ll call Gale later, when all of this has been resolved. The part of me that enjoys jumping to conclusions decides that _resolved_ means _when Peeta decides he wants nothing to do with me and I’ll have lost one more person_.

Jo picks up after a few rings.

“Everdeen,” she says. I can hear chainsaws in the background which muffle when she shuts a door. I can imagine her now, walking into the offices of the lumber yard, probably after joking that she needs to answer a rare call from her wreck of a friend.

“Jo,” I say, shielding my eyes with my hand, hunching over. She must be able to hear the upset in my voice because her joking tone is gone when she speaks again.

“What’s going on?” she asks. “Are you alright? Has something happened?”

“I’m fine,” I say, though I audibly am not. “Sorry to call you at work but—”

“I’m the boss, it’s fine,” she says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

So I tell her. The events of the past few days that she would otherwise make lewd comments about, how things changed yesterday, and the brief but angry argument of today. It quickly becomes apparent, even to me, that the real reason I’m upset is rooted in my long-standing grief and fears about being alone.

“Why do I do this?” I ask Jo, meaning my tendency to doubt myself, to doubt the affection of others, to constantly expect relationships to end if I get too involved in them.

“Listen to me,” Jo says. “This is self-destructive, but you’re not doing on purpose. And I don’t think you actually see what you’re doing until you’re already in it. I’ve seen you do it again and again, Everdeen. You shy away from everything and everyone but when you find something that might be good for you, you chase it no matter how superficial it may be, no matter how fast you’re moving. And then you come to the realisation that this is what you’re doing and you slam on the brakes and force yourself to justify everything. Not everything needs justifying. Sometimes it just _is_. And sometimes you find people who like to go head-first too.”

I stare, bleary-eyed, into the distance. The vineyards and hills around the villa. Padua in the distance. Jo is right yet again.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “I can’t tell if I’m just kidding myself. If I only keep Peeta near because I don’t want to be lonely.”

“Everything you’ve told me about that man makes me think that that isn’t the case. You like him because you like him, Everdeen. And what would it matter if you liked him because you didn’t want to be lonely? That’s part of every relationship, whether it’s platonic or not.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. What to think. I wish I wasn’t so upset about all of this. I wish I could just figure out how I felt without worrying about the _ifs_ and _buts._ I wish I didn’t make Peeta’s own distress into an argument about how I felt.

“Don’t sabotage something that could actually be really good for you,” Jo says wisely.

“I’m not actively doing it,” I reply. “I don’t want him to leave. But I know he will. He told me he was sick of me being unable to deal with how I felt about him.”

“He did?” Jo asks, her voice hardening.

“No,” I whisper. “No, he didn’t. But it felt like it.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he liked me and that it was difficult because I won’t commit to anything.”

“He said he liked you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Jesus, brainless. He likes you. That’s not a damn marriage proposal. I’m sure when he said _commit_ he didn’t mean that you had to lock in your decision for life. I’m sure he just meant that it would be nice if you could just acknowledge whether you wanted to pursue something with him.”

“But—”

“You’re stubborn as hell, Everdeen. Let me tell you that. And it’s not commitment you’re afraid of. You commit to things even if they’re going wrong. Your problem is that you always worry about what other people think, and if you’re doing things the ‘correct’ way. You should be enjoying the fact that some cute guy likes you, and a lot, apparently. Why does it matter how long you’ve known each other? Who cares how you met or how you began dating or anything like that? It’s _your_ relationship. I don’t like hearing you act like it’s no big deal. Everyone can see that it is.”

I grimace. “Really?”

“Hawthorne _called me_ and talked about it,” she says, which is honestly a shock. Gale doesn’t like to talk to Jo unless he has to because she gets under his skin.

“He did?”

“Yes. Told me you looked happy but that he was worried about you.”

I choke out an ugly laugh. “I’m not going to get murdered,” I say. “Peeta’s really nice.” The last word falters in my mouth. Because he is nice. God. He’s the best.

Jo makes a sound frustration. “It’s not the stranger danger he was talking about.”

I chew my bottom lip. “Oh.” I say.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Jo echoes. “Good god, Everdeen. Gale was worried because he knows that given the events of the past few years, if you sabotaged yourself or if you got dumped or whatever the scenario was, you’d blame yourself completely. It’s been hard enough keeping in contact with you and we’re your best friends.”

My heart pangs at that. “I know,” I whisper. “I have a problem with not thinking people actually care. Even if they’re my friends.”

Jo blows out a breath. “I wish you’d realised that five years ago.”

“Sorry,” I murmur.

“Don’t apologise,” she says. “It’s been a shit few years. I think you deserve a little romance. That doesn’t mean that it has to always be perfect.”

“I know,” I tell her. In the background, I hear the car returning, gravel crunching. Knowing that Peeta’s back makes a wave of relief wash over me. I can make this right. I have to make this right. Apologise. Explain. Not ruin this.

“What are you gonna do?” Jo asks.

“I’m going to be as honest as I can. Tell him why I have trouble trusting my gut when it comes to relationships.”

“Are you gonna tell him you like him?” I pause. Jo laughs in disbelief. “Brainless! You like him. You clearly do!”

I put my hand against my chest. It physically hurts to be told that, for some reason.

“I know,” I say. “I know.”

“You literally have no reason to worry about rejection. He’s already said he likes you back.”

“I know. But…”

“No buts. He’s told you how he feels and you yell at him in response. He follows you around Italy and doesn’t expect anything from you. And then you worry about shit so much that you don’t let yourself relax. You don’t let yourself admit that sometimes feelings don’t follow the rules and _that is okay_.”

I say nothing. Jo really has a way of tapping into the root of my problems. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

“You’re right,” I murmur.

“I know I am,” she says. “I’ve been friends with you for years now, brainless.” She sighs. “Tell him. Or at least tell him why you have your fears and doubts. I’m pretty sure he has plenty of his own, and you’re not helping.”

“Are you telling me to communicate?”

“I had to convince you it was your idea first.”

“Alright,” I say, rolling my eyes. I wipe the tears that have managed to work their way onto my cheeks. “Jesus. Prim would not be impressed with me.”

“Exactly,” Jo says. “Don’t let her down. Or me! Or yourself!”

“Okay, okay,” I choke out a laugh.

“I’ve got a job to get back to, alright? This is enough therapizing for today. Text me when you’ve talked to him.”

“I will,” I promise, and I mean it. “Jo, thank you. Seriously.”

I can hear her genuine smile in her voice, even though she acts like she doesn’t care. “Whatever, brainless,” she says. “Now go before one of my colleagues severs a limb.”

We hang up and then I sit with my eyes closed and my face turned towards the sun. Jo might be brutally honest ninety percent of the time, but it’s necessary. I _know_ I’m not good at reading people. I _know_ I’m still processing my grief. I _know_ I have a problem when it comes to believing that people care about me, even when they say it directly to my face. Talking through everything with her has been eye-opening. Now it’s up to me to act on this information.

I wait until my eyes are less puffy and then make my way inside. Nerves roll through me, knotting tightly in my stomach as I walk from the pool area, past the patio, and into the villa.

But it’s empty. I call Peeta’s name and find nothing. I peer out to the driveway to check that the car really did come back. I check every room and he’s just not there.

He must have gone somewhere else on the grounds, meaning I’m left to go and find him by wandering around, through the little gardens, through a meadow, and finally up the hill through the groves of olive trees. I use this time to think of what to say and how to say it. How to apologise. How to tell him that I like him but that admitting it is the scariest thing I could do. That my hesitance has nothing to do with him.

I find him a fair way up the hill, sat on a grassy bank with a godamn wooden easel set up in front of him and an actual paint palette in his hand. He’s painting the scene below, capturing it with the startling ease I’m still blown away by. He must have bought the supplies when he drove into Padua, because I’m pretty sure the villa didn’t include painting supplies. But to lug it all the way over here… I shake my head. Of course he would do something like this.

I don’t think he hears me walking through the grove, and keeps painting. I wait until the brush isn’t against the canvas and then say his name. He jumps, looks around.

“Hey,” he says after a moment, not looking at me, voice hushed.

“You’re gonna get burnt,” I tell him. He rubs at the back of his neck which is already looking a little red and just shrugs. A nearby bird chirps. The olive trees rustle in the wind. I force myself to speak.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Ever since you had that call from your brother, you’ve been… off. And that’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you for feeling like that and that isn’t really why we argued. It’s just that seeing you like that made me freak out about everything _I’ve_ been worried about. I called my friend and like… cried for half an hour to her.”

Peeta’s shoulders get tighter and tighter as I speak but I can’t stop now. He has to know that it’s not his fault that we fought. It’s just that his upset made me upset, even if it was about something different. Things just built up. No one’s fault. Feelings don’t follow the rules.

“I’m not mad at you,” I continue. “I’m really not. I shouldn’t have snapped at you and I shouldn’t have walked away—that wasn’t a mature thing to do. I’m sorry.”

I walk a bit closer. “I’ve been more honest with you these past few weeks, more comfortable with you than I have with almost anyone else in my life. So I need to keep being honest. Even though it scares me.” I take a breath. “I like you too,” I say. It feels like I’m sliding a knife into my own chest as I say it. “I do. A lot. And it happened fast. Which is scary to me. Even admitting it is… it’s terrifying.”

I wrap my arms around myself as if it’s cold.

“You said you were travelling to get away from stuff back home and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’m just running away from my problems. I’m not properly dealing with my grief and I know that. I’ve been feeling more alone than I thought I would. I thought I would be able to handle it but I’m lonely. I haven’t been home in over a year. I haven’t see my friends for about that long.”

I exhale. The word vomit is inescapable at this point but I’m glad because it means I’ll get to say everything and apologise and right this mess. And if I get rejected, well, at least I’ll have said my part.

“But then you appeared, Peeta. I realised I really liked being around you. And then I realised that actually I just really liked _you_ and I tried to shut it off because you said _no pressure_ and because I know it’s too fast—and it’s crazy to like someone this fast. I basically convinced myself that the only reason I liked you was because I didn’t want to be alone. But that’s not it. I like you because you’re kind and smart and happy and realising all this was like a big wave I couldn’t control. When I saw that you were upset it hit me all at once and I took my own fears out on you.”

I stare at the back of his head. “So I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to argue with you when you’re clearly dealing with something. I’m sorry I haven’t been clear about how I feel. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything at first and my stomach bottoms out. I just recited a veritable essay at him and he says nothing. Then he looks around, and I see the sadness in his eyes and I wonder if I should just turn and flee. Instead, I root myself like a tree and wait.

Then he nods.

“I’m not angry at you either,” he says quietly. “I think the same thing happened to me. Lots of emotions all at once. And it just…” he mimes an explosion with one hand. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you or called you unreasonable—you’re not. That was cruel of me. I shouldn’t have shut you out either. I know you were only trying to help. I just—I don’t want to put all my dumb family crap onto you. That’s not fair.”

He drops the paintbrush he holds into a jar of water balanced on the scruffy grass, sets down the paint, drags a hand through his hair.

“God,” he says. “This is really hard.” He glances back at me, twisting slightly on the bank. “I think we both know I’m more upfront about things than you are. And that’s okay. But I’ll never reject you and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like that’s what I was doing or was going to do.” He furrows his brow. “I like you too, okay? A lot. If that scares you, that’s okay too. I’m not going to be angry about that so long as you just _tell_ me that it scares you. At least then I know I’m not just shouting into the wind.”

He gives me a small, close-lipped smile. “There,” he says. “Said my piece too.”

“You said it better than me,” I mumble.

“I don’t think I did,” he replies.

I just look at him and then he looks away again. This is a person who grew up barely an hour away from me in a town I’d been to countless times, who was at my high school’s rival school, who I met by chance and then couldn’t and didn’t want to shake. And here we find each other in an olive grove, bleeding ourselves out for one another.

I walk closer, put my hand on his shoulder. For a few terrible seconds he doesn’t react. Then he reaches up, lays his hand over mine.

“You just have to be patient with me,” I whisper. He squeezes my fingers.

“I have all the time in the world for you, Katniss,” he replies, and I’m horrified that I feel tears coming on again. I hastily blink them away. He takes my hand, kisses it. “Please know that I feel a lot and it can be too much for people sometimes. I never meant for it to scare you.”

I bring our clasped hands up, hold his in both of mine.

“I know,” I tell him. “I know.”

We fall silent, then, a companionable nothingness. It’s just the cicadas, the breeze, and Peeta working, paintbrush ringing against the water jar. I sit a few paces in the grass, leaning back on my hands, watching him and the clouds buffeting past high above our heads.

After a little while, he sits more upright and glances back at me and then away again. I wait, sensing that he’s trying to say something difficult. His short speech (or short, compared to mine) has a second half he’s trying to work through.

Eventually he turns his body slightly more towards me while still managing to face away. His shoulders are hunched. I can see his hands picking anxiously at the paintbrush he holds. Then he just blurts out the following:

“The whole reason my brother called me is because my mom is still kicking up about my dad leaving the bakery to me. When it burned down and he and my oldest brother died, the insurance money went to me instead even though I lived with his parents for a few years and was never really there. Nothing went to her.”

I blink, trying to catch up with everything he’s just said. I hadn’t expected this. I suppose it makes sense, though. I’ve told him about my own grief, if not in massive detail. He’s said very little about his own family life. He might not even be sure that I know about the bakery fire, though I think most of Merchantville and Seamtown must be aware of what went down.

“Why?” I ask. It seems an odd thing to do, to not leave anything to your wife, the mother of your children.

“Well,” Peeta says, with a lightness that belies a huge weight on his chest, “to cut a very long sob story short, she kept beating the shit out of me.”

I feel ice cold horror sink into my veins. Peeta keeps talking.

“He was going through the process of divorcing her when he died so things then weren’t exactly… chill. Since my grandparents passed and since Fen died too it’s been up to Rye to mediate between me and my mom. Which I didn’t want to be the situation. But it is. So he called to let me know what she was doing. Make sure I was okay. I think he thought I was going to go off the rails in Europe.” He pauses. Glances back at me and then away again. “Sorry. That wasn’t very short. But I didn’t cry. So.” He looks down at the palette, aimlessly swirls paint.

I say nothing. I just try to wrap my head around what he’s just said. He’d said his brother—Rye, I assume—called because of ‘crappy family drama’. I’d thought he meant as in useless, petty drama between family members. Not the drama of a crappy family.

“I’ve been to therapy,” he says abruptly. “I am working on it. And I’m not looking for sympathy or anything. It’s just—you told me about your stuff. I thought I should tell you about mine.”

“I should probably go to therapy too,” I murmur. This makes him laugh for some reason, turning properly to look at me, face brighter than I’ve seen since we got to the villa. “Is there a travelling therapist I could get in touch with?” I ask, and he snorts.

“I don’t know, but therapy’s really great,” he says. “Really hard, but really great at the same time.”

I laugh too. Then I groan and scrub my face in my hands. What a mess. What a mess we both are.

“We’re still here though,” he says. I didn’t realise I said that part out loud. “Still here, and in Italy. I mean, what am I doing out here? Painting in an olive grove? This is laughable.”

“It’s nice!” I say.

“Yeah,” he commiserates. “Despite everything, we’re here, and it’s nice.”

We spend the next hour just sat there. It’s an utter relief, and I can tell that he feels as unburdened as I do. We talk about anything but _feelings_ and _family_ and Peeta keeps painting and I gaze at the scenery and when it begins to get a little colder, reminding me that summer really is coming to an end, I carry the easel and Peeta carries his canvas and we stroll back down the hill.

We eat a simple supper and then shower and get into bed. I’m exhausted, emotionally and physically.

“I can’t believe you carried that easel up the hill,” I say as we pull the bedsheets over ourselves. Peeta’s ears go red.

“I was in a mood,” he says.

“And your reaction is open air painting?”

“Yes,” he deadpans. “I’d say that’s a pretty healthy coping mechanism, actually.”

“It could be hard drugs,” I point out. He chuckles.

“That might be fun in another way,” he replies. I roll my eyes and curl up next to him.

Just before we turn out the lights, he cups my jaw in his hand. I lean in, kiss him. I missed this, in the few hours in which we fought. I missed him. I missed what we had.

He pulls away, smiles. “You really like me back?” he asks. I fight an automatically defensive response and nod instead.

“Yeah,” I say. He beams. “But don’t make it weird.”

We lie in the dark and the silence for long enough that I think he’s fallen asleep, but then he reaches over and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. I lean into his touch.

His eyes gleam in the blue gloom. I gather the courage needed and then say, “I’m sorry all that happened to you, Peeta. Truly.”

He’s quiet for a bit. Then, “Me too.” He brushes his thumb over my cheek. “I’m sorry about your mom and your sister. And your dad. They must have been amazing people.”

“They were,” I whisper. “I’m just happy I got to have them in my life at all.”

Peeta draws me in close. I don’t feel like I’m going to cry. I just feel calm. Post-argument, this is the fresh air after the storm. The clarity. The relief.

“I’m really happy to be here with you,” Peeta murmurs. “I didn’t think I’d get anything like this.”

I’m glad it’s dark enough that he can’t see my face. Still, I have to bury it in his chest before I can say, “I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

He kisses the top of my head. I press my palm over his chest and feel his heartbeat, measure it, slow my own to the same pace, and fall asleep.

Our final full day in the villa is spent more as I had imagined it would be from the vantage point of Ferrera. I wake up to him snoring beside me as he lies face down on the bed and get up to make breakfast. He appears twenty minutes later saying that he woke up and I was gone and then we go outside and eat freshly cut fruit and toast and plan our day.

Neither of us and the energy to go and explore Padua, so we decide to laze about. I think we’re both still tired after yesterday, and I know I’m still processing that I admitted I like Peeta back, and I don’t doubt he’s still processing everything too.

The day consists of naps on the loungers or reading or sketching or slipping into the cool water to escape the last of the summer sun. It means cooking together, or rather Peeta cooking and me holding things and stirring as instructed. And eventually, it means him backing me against the wall so he can kiss me, or us making out by the pool.

By the evening, I feel like a new person. I feel like we’ve returned somewhat to what we had before but that there’s new clarity there, less fog between the two of us. We spin into orbit once again.

We eat dinner under the string lights on the patio, bare feet brushing, exchanging smiles. We talk about the food and the scenery and about how nice the villa is. I clear the table and Peeta loads the dishwasher, and then we toast by the pool.

“To a few days in Padua,” Peeta says. “To understanding and growth.”

I smile at him, emotion swelling in my chest. God. I like him a lot.

“To understanding and growth,” I echo.

Before bed, I jump into the shower to wash chlorine from my hair and skin. Peeta steps into the cubicle before I can turn the water onto him like he’s a pesky cat, and then my shower extends itself by fifteen minutes before I do manage to shove him out, my knees like jelly after coming just from his fingers.

I towel off. Wrap it around my body. Step into the bedroom.

“Peeta,” I say. He lifts his head from where he’s lying on his back in the centre of the mattress, clad only in boxers. I drop the towel. He sits up.

“Come here,” he says, eyes darkening, and as I roll into bed with him, glad to have this aspect of our relationship back once again, I can’t help but think that if this is what I get for liking Peeta, what will I get by loving him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @saturnblushes on tumblr and pinterest


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the final chapter! *pats self on back*
> 
> There’s plenty of sightseeing in this but also some smut (mild dom/sub dynamics btw) and plenty of ROMANCE and FRIENDSHIP and HAPPINESS. I hope that makes up for the last chapter, and HAPPY SATURDAY! May you all feel love and joy and comfort this weekend.
> 
> Anthems: San Luis by Gregory Alan Isakov, Chin Up by Yoke Law, She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult, and Love Alive by Heart.

**{6} Venice**

The feeling of being re-centred continues into the next morning. We wake, pack our things, leave the villa. Drive through the morning sunlight into Padua. It’s quiet and calm and the tightness in my chest has left, leaving me as light as a feather.

We leave the car with the rental branch in Padua and get the high-speed train to Venice. It’s only a thirty minute journey, just enough time to grab a coffee and some of the wrapped biscuits being sold on the little cart pushed up and down the carriage. At the start of the journey, Peeta warns me that the white noise of the train will probably make him fall asleep, and sure enough, he dozes off a few minutes later, his rapidly cooling tea abandoned on the table. I take a picture of him with his mouth open and don’t wake him up until we’re a few minutes from arriving.

“What did I miss?” he asks, looking marginally worse-off for his nap.

“Nothing,” I say with a smile, pushing his drink towards him. “We’re nearly there.”

We watch the sparkling Adriatic unfurling in the distance like a pair of wings. The train glides into the coastal sprawl that is Venice and we marvel at the train’s path straight across the lagoon. The Venice everyone knows from tourist photos quickly comes into view, the land crowded with white stone, red-roof buildings, a stark contrast to the cerulean waters lapping on all sides.

Having grown up in a landlocked state, seeing the ocean only once before on a rare family vacation, the smell of salt in the air and the cries of gulls and smack of boats on the shimmering water is completely overwhelming to my senses, especially after the relative peace and quiet of the Emilio-Romagna region.

“This is crazy,” Peeta says, eyes glowing as they reflect the ocean. “My grandparents used to take me to the Outer Banks in North Caroline but the Atlantic isn’t as pretty as this.”

“Colder too,” I murmur, knowing I’m much rather swim in the Adriatic than in the icy waters of the east coast.

We disembark at the station and go and find out hotel. The sea air and atmosphere of the island city is amazing, and after the past few days, I can’t help but think that this change of scenery is exactly what we need. I follow Peeta through a gaggle of tourists, watch him walking ahead, and there’s a moment when he looks back to make sure I’m still there, and a ray of sunlight slices down between the buildings and hits him perfectly as he smiles as gestures for me, and I have to take a breath and remind myself that my feelings are reciprocated, that they aren’t something to only be afraid of. That to love Peeta in any capacity—to be _around_ him—will be something impossible to regret.

And that’s another breath of fresh air. It can be scary, yes, to feel these things about a person. To let them in because of it. It’s like fear or upset or a surge of agony, how quickly the feeling has come over me. Rising like pressure building in my chest, bright and buoyant, the complete opposite of those negative, hurtful emotions. It’s exhilarating, like I’ve gone up and up to the highest point of a rollercoaster, and I’m wondering if I should get out, give up—but now the carriage has dropped and I’m flying and flying, my hair whipping out behind me, my body rattling, a joyful scream catching in my throat as I zip up and down and forget why I ever wanted to get out in the first place.

I hurry up to catch up to Peeta, pulling my suitcase after me. Peeta reaches for my hand.

“Don’t want to lose you,” he says, and I squeeze his fingers tightly against mine.

The hotel is just outside the city centre, an old building that like half of the others is sinking sideways into the ocean. Cracks run over the plaster and paint, and markers reaching up on the walls indicate how high the water can sometimes flood through, overflowing the canals and pouring into these ancient streets. Inside the building it has the charm of a grand old hotel, beige and gold in colour with glittering chandeliers, a theme that continues up to our room. Pinkish-brown walls, gold-edged mirrors and paintings on the walls, terracotta tiles underfoot, a huge four-poster bed. A chaise by one of the windows, and a set of doors that creak as they open, revealing a floor-to-ceiling view of the canal outside, not a road, and the equally charming building opposite, with a boat tied up to the green-tinged wall and a set of steps that lead straight down into the water.

“I can’t believe you found this place,” Peeta says, coming to stand behind me as I gaze out. We listen to the water and I watch the sunlight glinting off and reflecting wavering patterns across the ceiling and walls. This entire place feels underwater.

“Remind me again how you do it?” he asks, hand grazing my side as he turns me around so we’re facing each other. I smile at him.

“I’ll never tell,” I say quietly, and he smiles back, slow, eyes fixed on me.

“You’re the best,” he murmurs, and I roll my eyes, popping up on my toes to press a quick kiss to his cheek before darting away.

“We’ve got Venice to explore, Peeta! Let’s go!” I tell him, clapping my hands. When I glance back him, he’s still by the window, lit in shimmering light, head tilted like he’s trying to weigh up the pros and cons of staying in this room all day versus actually exploring this city. With enough prodding from me, he comes to the conclusion that he can have both, and ten minutes later, we’re out of the door.

Venice is all sea and sculpture, white stone and red tile. I take a bunch of photos and send them into my chats with Johanna, Gale, and Madge to let them know I’m doing well and not lost, kidnapped, or otherwise. As is my tradition, Peeta and I go for a bite to eat first, trying whatever the cashier recommends. The café we sit in is airy and quiet and we plan our day while we drink fresh tea and coffee and eat delicate pastries oozing with tart jam or dusted with sugar. I take a photo of Peeta when he gets jam on his face.

“Hey, unfair,” he says, grabbing a napkin. “It’s not my fault I’m a mess.”

Warmth unfurls in my chest as I look at the picture. I scroll once, twice, again, and again, and again. So many pictures of Peeta. My camera roll is filled with them. _My mess_ , I think. I set down my phone and put my chin in my hand and smile at him.

“What?” he asks, self-conscious.

“Nothing,” I reply, and he smiles all soft and golden and grabs my free hand so he can kiss my knuckles.

“I’m glad to be here with you,” he says. “I’m glad we talked. Argued. All of it.”

“Me too,” I say. “Me too, Peeta.”

After our brunch, we set out into the city. We visit the tourist hotspots first: Piazza San Marco, Basilica di San Marco, Doge’s Palace. All beautiful, all crowded. Around two p.m. we grab a table in the wide square for a late lunch. I leave Peeta at a tiny table with his tiny notebook, pencil, and eraser so he can sketch to his heart’s content, while I duck into a café and order our food.

While I’m in line, I text Johanna and let her know I’m okay.

**Me:** _we argued about everything that happened and then talked about us. we’re okay. I’m okay. thanks for listening to me yesterday, you’re a good friend, jo._

I don’t expect an answer right away, so I pocket my phone. Food ordered, I head back to our table. We chat quietly as take in the atmosphere as we wait, and when the waiter arrives, I thank him and we dig in to our meal. Peeta grins at me as he drinks a soda.

“So when are you gonna start with the Italian lessons?” he asks. “Pretty sure I remember you saying you’d teach me.”

“You really want to learn?” I ask, and he nods enthusiastically.

“Of course. I’d love to come back here and talk to a local without having to gesture wildly.”

I laugh, leaning back in my chair. “Peeta, Italians talk _with_ their hands.”

“What I’m hearing is that I’m already halfway to being fluent.”

I roll my eyes. “What do you want to learn first?”

He furrows his brow. “Tell me how to flirt,” he says after a minute, smiling innocently with those big blue eyes. “I already know _ciao, bella_.”

“That’s so basic,” I say, and he laughs. “Well, if you wanted to ask someone if you could buy them a drink, you would say _posso offrirti qualcosa da bere?_ That might work.”

Peeta blinks at me. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to repeat that for me,” he says. I do, several times, sounding it out for him. He tries it out, the language as clunky on his lips as it was that day in Sant’Oreste. When he manages to say it all in one go, waggling his eyebrows at me, he asks me if it would work on me.

“I’d appreciate the effort,” I say kindly.

“How ‘bout a good ol’ Panem pickup line?” he asks, not deterred in the slightest.

“Uh, no thank you,” I blanch, remembering grown men leaning out of their gas-guzzling trucks and yelling _how’re you doing, sweetheart_ at me, even when I was a kid. “Panem isn’t know for its classy men,” I tell Peeta.

“I’m a _clear_ exception to that rule,” he boasts. Then, affecting a Panem accent so strong it’s a shock to the system, he reels out some lines I’m sadly familiar with.

_Hey girl, I’d like to ring your southern bell._

_Do ya have a name, or can I just call you mine?_

_Country boys don’t need pickup lines ‘cus we got pickup trucks._

When he winks at me and opens with, “Are you from Tennessee?” I groan.

“Oh my god,” I cringe. “Stop, please, I beg of you.”

Peeta grins. “You’re saying if I didn’t open with one of those down at Old Sae’s you wouldn’t be interested?”

“I’d sooner be dead than be at Old Sae’s.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“It definitely wasn’t a yes.”

Peeta smirks. “I think we woulda got on like a lump a’coal on fire, little lady.”

I rub my forehead. “I think I just blacked out.”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “I’ll stop with the romancin’.”

We walk around the city for the rest of the afternoon, popping in and out of shops and boutiques, gazing at all the sights Venice has to offer. We eat more food than is probably good for us, and after grabbing our evening meal and eating it to the sound of someone playing on an accordion. It’s so Italian and it’s perfect and more than I could dream of for a first day in Venice.

When we get back to our room, it’s dark out and my feet are aching. I jump into the shower and into some pyjamas, and when I come out, he’s rooting through his rucksack.

“Hey,” he says. “I just realised. Yesterday was six weeks since we met.”

I sit down on the bed, braiding my damp hair. “Really?” I ask. “I can’t believe it’s only been that long.”

He nods. “It feels like I’ve known you forever,” he says, smiling at me and then looking back down at his rucksack. “Best six weeks of my life,” he adds, quieter, like it’s not really meant to be for me to hear.

I just sit there and stare at him. How can he just _say_ things like that? Things that make me wonder if he’s pre-planned all the sweet and funny words hat come out of his mouth, things that make me feel warm inside. I know some people have naturally got silver tongues and that I’ll certainly never be remembered as eloquent, but the way he says such things and so simply makes me feel dizzy in a good way. And he doesn’t seem to know how much of an effect they really have on me.

“Peeta,” I say, and he looks across, something in my tone apparently spiking his concern.

“What?”

“This can’t be the best six weeks of your life,” I say. “I’ve dragged you places, cried on you, yelled at you... I can’t believe you.”

He looks deadly serious. “The best month and a half of my life by far,” he reiterates. “I’m glad I harassed you with my terrible Italian that day. I’m glad I bumped into you in Rome. I’m glad you’ve dragged me around and cried on me and yelled at me. I’m more than glad. It’s way more than I ever could have asked for.”

I flop down on my back, cushioned by the soft mattress. There he goes again. I’ll have to check that he hasn’t brought some romance novel with him, and is simply reciting lines from it.

I hear him stand up and join me on the bed. He lies on his stomach and smiles easily at me.

“Don’t make it weird,” he says. “I like telling people how I feel. Get used to it.”

“I know,” I say, squishing his arm. I sigh. “I really regretted having to leave you in Rome. Regretted not doing something about it. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the street.”

“Fate,” Peeta says. “I couldn’t believe it either.”

I look at him and he looks at me. I want to squish his face in my hands so I do, mushing his cheeks up, ruffling his hair until he grabs me, rolls me on top of him.

“Happy six weeks,” he says.

“Of what?” I ask.

“Of knowing each other,” he says, and I know he must be able to feel my smile when I kiss him.

The next day is _the_ day. Canal day. It’s gloriously sunny, perfect for a day on the water, and we buy tickets for what is promised to be a perfect mix of relaxing gondola trip and tour de force lesson in Venetian history. This ticks both of my boxes and I wake excited and eager. Peeta, in comparison, looks like I’m telling him to get onto an already sinking ship.

“You know I can’t swim,” he says as we walk towards the launching site, our clasped hands idly swinging, his decidedly clammier than my own.

“That’s alright,” I say. “We’re in a boat.”

He gives me an unimpressed look. “I’m scared of water, dummy,” he says in sarcastic clarification.

“I’ll look after you,” I promise.

He grimaces. “I’ll sink like a stone.”

I squeeze his hand. “You’ll be fine.”

The line we wait in is filled with excitable tourists and none look as nervous as Peeta does. He peers anxiously at the green water from a few meters away from the edge and eyes the bobbing gondolas with suspicion. The gondolier-come-tour-guide spies him straight away, and jokes to one of his colleagues about giving _l’americano_ a lifejacket. I smile at the joke, which Peeta catches straight away.

“What are they saying?” he asks. “Are they laughing at me?”

“They said it was real rough waters out on the canals today. Big swells.”

“No they didn’t.”

“No, they didn’t,” I pat his cheek. “You look pale. They think you need a lifejacket.”

He clears his throat, puffs up his chest. “I don’t need one,” he says.

“That’s the spirit,” I reply, and then we’re piling onto a narrow, wobbly boat with handful of others and Peeta doesn’t let go of my hand. Once we’re seated, the gondolier welcomes us aboard, gives a brief safety talk, and then pushes us out into the water.

“We’re okay,” I say to Peeta, tucking his arm under mine. “You won’t fall in.”

He nods like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact, and I can tell that he’s making a considerable effort not to worry too much. Granted, it’s pretty hard to do in a boat like this, but I lean against him, shoulder to shoulder, and slowly he begins to relax.

It’s one of the most touristy things I’ve done during my entire trip to Italy, and as we glide past sinking buildings, catch glimpses of the city, marvel at this watery oasis, I realise exactly why people like doing this so much. It’s fun and unique and when the gondolier jumps out of the boat onto a bridge, crosses, and jumps back down, everyone claps and cheers (except Peeta, who says _what the fuck_ with wide eyes, like the gondolier is just going to leave us to float forever). The gondolier knows his stuff, telling us all about the various buildings and canals we pass by, describing the construction and upkeep of Venice, the efforts made to prevent the sea reclaiming it, the Greek and Roman history of the place.

Our fellow passengers snap a gazillion photos, and halfway through, a British tourist sat in front of us offers to take our photo. We bunch up on the seat and smile, and then end up talking to the woman for the remainder of the trip, comparing our travels. Peeta relaxes even more with the friendly conversation.

“So you didn’t come to Italy together?” she asks me, after I explain how we met.

“No. I gave him a ride into Rome and we bumped into each other again a few days later and just…”

“… kept going,” Peeta finishes, because that’s it, isn’t it? We just kept going. We didn’t want to leave without the other.

“We’re actually from the same state back home,” I add, and the woman’s eyes bug out.

“That’s so cool. I hope I don’t bump into anyone from my bloody hometown,” she laughs. “You’re a really cute couple, though.”

I glance at Peeta and he glances at me, ears red. I’m sure I look a little like a deer in headlights.

“Thanks,” he says, when it becomes clear that I’m unable to think of what to say. He squeezes my hand and keeps asking the woman about her visit to Venice, and the conversation keeps rolling.

The entire gondola ride is, by the end of it, calming and delightful, at least to me. The green-blue water, at places filled with fish, the history of the place, the odd but effective mode of transport. It’s fun and more than a little memorable. Peeta admits he’s had a good time eventually, but when we disembark, he gets nervous again, and when he makes a _heugheu!_ sound as he almost loses his footing between the boat and the land, I laugh so hard I think I’m going to pee myself.

“You just said you had a good time!” I say between laughter as we walk away.

“I did!” he exclaims, looking harried, pushing his hair off his forehead. “I did. I just—” He shakes his head. “I just love land. So much.”

“You were very brave,” I praise him.

“You were no help,” he says, shoving me.

“Are you kidding? I held your hand the entire time.”

“You made fun of me the entire time.”

I wiggle my fingers in his face. “To _distract_ you.”

He scoffs, glowering. I elbow him and his frown breaks into a grin.

“See, you did enjoy it,” I say. “And no one even fell in.”

“As if you wouldn’t like to see me floundering in a canal.”

“Thought you said you’d sink like a stone,” I ponder, and he groans, grabbing me by the waist and spinning as he brings me in for a kiss, the whole movement so fast that I have to grasp at his shoulders for balance.

“You’re the worst,” he says when we break apart. I kiss him once more, softly.

“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”

The rest of the day is spent looking through museums and eating ice cream and generally drifting from one place to another. We cross crowded bridges, point at pigeons fighting with seagulls, and eventually walk to the edge of the city to gaze out at the water and watch the sunset. We sit on the top of a low wall, legs swinging over the darkening lagoon as the sun sinks into it. Peeta informs me that this is pushing it in terms of proximity-to-water, but doesn’t ask to leave. Boats zip and trundle back and forth, people walk leisurely past us, the sea breeze, just beginning to show hints of the chill that arrives at the end of the summer, is refreshing. I close my eyes, feel the day’s light on my skin. A golden kiss. _Un bacio d’oro._

Peeta sketches, keeping a death grip on his sketchpad and utensils, and I answer Jo, who replied to me about an hour prior.

**Jo:** _out remote at work, sorry for the late reply._

**Jo:** _glad ur okay. are you both on the same page?_

**Me:** _yeah, I think so. we’re in venice now. it’s really nice. He’s really nice. It’s all really nice._

**Jo:** _so I don’t need to bury him in the woods anywhere?_

**Me:** _I appreciate the offer but no._

**Me:** _how was work?_

**Jo:** _really good until u tell me I’ve got to go back and fill in the grave I dug_

**Me:** _u already dug a hole? You’re an amazing friend_

**Jo:** _of course I am :)_

And then, because Jo can’t go five minutes without being crude:

**Jo:** _hope you jump his bones LOL_

**Me:** _maybe you should just get into the hole yourself? stay there and think about what u just said_

After that, I look through my photos of the day, smiling at the ones from the boat and showing them to Peeta.

“We _do_ look cute,” he observes. “I look a bit wide-eyed, though.”

He’s correct in both regards. I think of what that British woman said when she took our photo. That we were a cute couple. We are cute. We complement each other. He’s calm and cheerful and I’m stubborn and irritable. I can’t imagine travelling alone again. I send a photo of the sunset to Johanna and Madge and Gale, and then find the courage to end the photo of Peeta and I on the gondola as well. Jo replies barely ten seconds later.

**Jo:** _JUMP HIS BONES!!!_

**Jo:** _that’s sickening. u two are sickening i can already tell_

Madge takes a few minutes longer to reply but is excitable when she does.

**Madge:** _Venice is GORGEOUS wow how stunning is that?!_

**Madge:** _every photo I see makes me so very jealous <3_

**Madge:** _OMG is that HIM?!?!?!!!_

**Gale:** _who took the gondola photo_

**Me:** _one of the other passengers_

**Me:** _and yes that is him madge calm down_

I get an immediate Facetime call.

“Go ahead,” Peeta says, hearing the bubbling ringtone. “I’m sure they won’t say anything embarrassing, and I’ll just sit here quietly.”

I scoff at him, but answer the call. Madge’s glowing face fills the screen, her voice crackling briefly before she squeals my name. I slam down the volume and angle the phone away from Peeta, cringing.

“Hey, Madge,” I say.

“Gale’s being a drama queen in the other room,” she laments, before bellowing for the man in question. Jesus Christ. “Where are you?” she then asks. “Are you outside?”

“Yeah, watching the sun go down,” I say, and she gets literal heart eyes. I make a mental note to force Gale to take her to Venice before I have to do it myself.

“Watching it with _him_?” she hisses, like it’s some conspiracy. Beside me, Peeta brightens, pleased, pointing at himself and mouthing _him?!_

“Yeah,” I tell Madge, batting him away. “Don’t be weird.”

“I’m happy for you!” she says in self-defence, before hollering for Gale again. “I swear to god,” she says. “Anyway, Venice looks amazing, are you having a lovely time? How was the gondola ride?”

We chat about Venice for a bit, and I’m glad they don’t know about what went down with Peeta and I just a few days ago. I just want to think about how happy I am, talk about it with my friends, embrace that I’m in a beautiful place with a guy I really, really like.

Eventually, though, Madge can’t stop herself any longer.

“I was _pleasantly_ surprised to finally see a photo of the handsome man you’re so enamoured with,” she says. “He looks great, Katniss, honestly. Tell him hello for me. And that I want to meet him!”

“He can hear you, Madge,” I cringe, and she gasps. Beside me, Peeta is grinning, looking down at the water and listening to my friend.

“Oh!” she says, before raising her voice. “Well, hello mystery man. It’s nice to see a picture of you at long last. Katniss hasn’t been very forthcoming with information about you. The first time we saw you we thought you were breaking into her hotel room.” She doesn’t stop to let Peeta quiz me about this. “You look very cosy,” she says instead, winking.

“Madge…”

“I’m just saying. He’s very handsome. You should be proud. He’s blond. Muscular. You know.”

“Yes, I do,” I say. At my side, Peeta’s head inflates another two or three sizes.

“I’m so happy for you, Katniss, honestly,” Madge sighs.

“Thank you, Madge,” I reply, just as Gale appears on the screen, face like a slapped ass. “Gale,” I say in greeting, at the same time as his wife says, “The lovely Peeta is right there and he can hear what you say if you’re mean.”

Gale sighs heavily. “How’s it going, Catnip?” he asks. “Those photos are nice.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Do you have any comments?”

“Not if this is a public call.”

I roll my eyes. In a moment of madness, I look at Peeta, muting the call. “You wanna say hi?” I ask him. I know it’s what Madge wants. I know Gale wants to too, if for different reasons. And I do want Peeta to meet my friends, my only family. It can’t be any more embarrassing than it has already gone, or any worse than it did with Jo that early morning in Rome.

“Do you want me to?” he asks, smoothing down his hair.

“Only if you’re comfortable,” I murmur.

“You met Finnick and Annie,” he says. “And that was fun. And in person.”

He has a point. I know he’ll have to meet Madge and Gale at some point, probably sooner rather than later. Perhaps it’ll be better if they’ve already been able to introduce themselves and talk, even briefly.

“Okay,” I say. And then, quieter, even though the call is muted, “Gale is scary-looking but he’s nice once you get to know him. He’s like a protective big brother.”

“Alright,” Peeta says, like he’s taking notes.

“Madge is super-nice,” I add. “Intense but so nice. The nicest.”

“Got it,” Peeta says, and then I unmute the call.

“You can say hi if you’re chill,” I say, and Madge claps her hands.

“Oh my god, I’d love to say hi!” she says. Gale mutters something but the signal crackles conveniently so I don’t hear it. He waits expectantly anyway. As gruff as he is, I know he does want to know who’s grabbed my attention—and my heart—in a way that no one has before.

So I turn the camera. Peeta and I lean in. I see Madge squint at the screen.

“Peeta, Madge and Gale,” I introduce. “Madge and Gale, Peeta.”

“Hi,” Peeta says first, waving and offering his brightest smile. In the dying sunlight he’s lit in gold and orange. “I’m Peeta. It’s nice to sort-of meet you.”

“Peeta, _hi_!” Madge replies. “I’m Madge. So good to meet you too. Sorry if I embarrassed you earlier but Katniss really hasn’t said much and I was waiting for a photo of you, see what all the fuss has been about!”

Peeta laughs. “Ah, that’s my fault. I wouldn’t let her send any photo I looked bad in,” he jokes.

“Oh, I don’t believe that’s true,” Madge says. “You’re very photogenic and Katniss is very stubborn.”

Offending both me and Gale in one sentence, Madge grins. Peeta just laughs in bewilderment.

“Hi, Peeta, good to see you,” Gale finally says.

“Hey, man,” Peeta replies. “Katniss has only said good things about you.”

“I’m sure,” Gale drawls. “You looking after my best friend?”

“Katniss doesn’t need looking after. I’m just lucky she let me tag along with her. I can’t speak a word of Italian.”

Gale nods, satisfied with the first part of Peeta’s answer, and then, to me he says, sarcastically, _non riesco a credere che tu viaggi in Italia e trovi ancora un uomo di Panem_ —‘I can’t believe you travel to Italy and still find a man from Panem’.

“What can I say?” I shrug, and he shakes his head.

For the rest of the call, Madge gushes about Venice and fires a barrage of questions at Peeta until I have to finally say enough is enough.

“I’ll speak to you both later,” I promise them. Madge bids Peeta farewell, and Peeta assures them it was his pleasure speaking to them. Just before I end the call, Gale speaks up.

“I know you’ve met Johanna,” he says. “What’d you think?”

“She’s… different,” Peeta says diplomatically. Gale’s stony expression cracks and he smiles.

“Yeah, man, you could say that,” he chuckles. I hang up fifteen seconds later, cutting Madge off halfway through her fifth ‘goodbye!’.

My ears ring as I stare at my phone. “Jesus,” I say after a minute, grimacing at Peeta. “I should’ve thrown my phone into the sea about ten minutes ago.”

He chuckles, bumping his shoulder against mine. “It’s alright. I’m glad to meet them. See if you’re all weird or if it’s just you.”

I groan, not even giving him a proper response. “You’re so friendly with everyone,” I lament. “It’s easy for you. I’m a potato in all social situations.”

“Good thing I’m here, then, huh?” he says. I pocket my phone and grab him by the back of the neck, kissing him soundly. “What was that for?” he asks when I pull back.

“No reason,” I say, climbing down from the wall. He happily follows, sliding his notebook into his back pocket.

“It wouldn’t be because I’m so _handsome_ and muscular, would it?” he asks, and I shove him, because that’s exactly why, but also because he’s here, with me, and he’s so wonderful, and because my heart is full with how much I feel for him.

“You picked up on that?” I tease, and he grabs my hand as we walk away down the street.

“Babe, I live for compliments,” he says, and for that I have to kiss him again.

We grab dinner in the form of pizza, eating it under string lights with conversations in dozens of languages happening around us. It’s nice. Simple but delicious food. Excellent company. The buzz of talking to my friends. The buzz of good wine and a good atmosphere. The walk back to the hotel is meandering but charged. Lots of heated looks and lingering touches.

“Hey,” I say as we head up to our floor in the elevator. “We didn’t do anything to celebrate six weeks.”

Peeta looks across at me. “Do you have something in mind?”

“It seems like we’ve moved kind of fast for two people who’ve not known each other that long.”

“But, like, if we were going on dates and stuff, we wouldn’t be seeing each other every day like we are now. So if you take that into consideration, we’re basically already into month six.”

“So?” I ask, as the elevator doors slide open.

“So things are different,” Peeta says simply. We walk out into the corridor. Walk to our room. I open the door. Peeta crowds me in. I kick off my shoes, toss my bag aside. Peeta wisely goes to the windows and slides the curtain across.

Then he turns to me. Appraises me as I appraise him. His mouth pulls into a smirk, his cupid’s bow cinching into a sinful arch. I have to take a breath as a spike of white-hot heat slices through me. This man, standing there looking like _that_ , waiting for me to do what? Decide? Make the first move?

I want to take control. I want to do what might be scary even though I desperately want it. So when he takes a step forward, hands going to my waist, and I pry him off, step back.

A beat. He eyes me.

“Get undressed,” I say, and his eyebrows flicker upwards. I think he’s about to say something, but instead he stays silent, unbuttoning his shirt and kicking off his boots. When he’s down to his underwear at my instruction, I push him down onto the bed. He falls like a felled tree, eyes dark, breath catching.

“You okay?” he asks like a dork.

“Yes,” I say, clambering on top of him, balancing on my knees either side of him on the mattress. His hands smooth over my thighs as I unzip my sundress. “Take this off me.”

He does as I ask, tugging the zipper the rest of the way and then pulling it over my head.

“Oh,” he says, sounding strained already, and I bite my lip, feeling powerful when I lean down to kiss him, hard and wet and deep. “Shit,” he says, hands on my hips to guide me to grind down against him. “God, you feel good,” he hisses, and I pull back, sliding my hands over my chest. He really is handsome. Best-looking guy I’ve ever seen, and he’s mine.

We strip down until we’re naked, and I don’t waste any more time. I feel like I’m on fire as I sink down on him, moaning at the stretch, at the sound he makes as I rock my hips. A million sensations flash through my head, a million thoughts. I want this. I want him. I only want him. I never want him to doubt that a person could want him. I just want to make him feel as good as he makes me feel.

I dig my nails into his stomach when he’s fully inside me, thighs quivering. Peeta tips his head back into the pillow, jaw tightening as he breathes. I tighten around him and he half-moans, half-chuckles.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he says, hands on my ass. “You’re gonna kill me, Katniss, and I don’t even care.”

I fist his hair and tug his head back down so I can kiss him, the change in angle letting me grind more fully against him, stimulating my clit.

“Shit, Katniss,” he grunts against my mouth and I move fast, and he thrusts up into me, hands all over me. He wraps his arms around me so we’re flush against each other, thrusting faster, one wide hand at the small of my back to keep me against him, and I come abruptly, surprising us both, pleasure surging through me. He keeps moving and I cry out.

“Already?” he asks, and I have to sit up, have to try and catch my breath. I didn’t think I’d come so fast, but it’s already so intense. I gasp for air, balancing my hands on his stomach, feeling his abs tensing.

“Oh my god, Peeta,” I say, a whimper catching in my throat. He groans, staring up at me, hand going to my breast. I put my hand over his, tipping my head back. _Jesus_.

“That felt good, huh?” he asks. “You like feeling me inside you?”

For some reason my face burns, and I pull his hand away from my chest, and the other from my hip, and pin them down on the mattress instead.

“Ugh, _shut up_ ,” I say, not really meaning it, but unable to handle the fact that I wanted to do this to make _him_ come, and yet he managed to make me come just by being so godamn hot. Seeing how willingly he goes, not fighting me, doesn’t help matters. Knowing that he’s stronger than me and could easily break free if he wanted to but doesn’t sends a wave of power through me so strong I can barely breathe.

I grind my hips down with purpose, wanting him to come now. I balance myself on his wrists at first and then let go. He doesn’t move them apart from to ball the bedsheets in his fists, and I moan, feeling powerful and sexy and utterly his.

“I—I’m gonna come,” he says after a moment, eyes screwing shut. I look at him, let him thrust up into me, press one palm over his stomach and balance myself with another over one of his pecs, gasping, head spinning. “Katniss—” he chokes out.

“Come, Peeta,” I tell him. “I wanna feel you.”

He curses, grunts my name, hands flexing like he wants to touch me. He doesn’t, one arm twitching up until his hand is nearly at my hip before dropping back down again, and I watch him come, watch the pleasure rip through him, a full-body shake. I slow my movements until he opens his eyes and blinks blearily up at me, red blotches on his cheeks, chest rising and falling. I wait until his eyes have cleared slightly and then tighten around him and begin moving again, chasing my second orgasm. The effect is immediate, and he can’t stop himself this time, hands on my hips and ass.

“Ugh,” he grunts, overstimulated. “Fuck, fuck,” he gasps, staring at where we’re joined and then tipping his head back with a hiss.

“You want me to stop?” I ask, and he strains against the bed. He doesn’t answer, to I slide my hands over his chest and lean forward until I’m flat against him again, feel his chest against mine. I kiss over his neck, feeling his pulse against my lips. “Peeta,” I say, repeating the question.

“No— _no_ , fuck,” he says, voice deep and gravelly in my ear. “Just—ugh, _Katniss_ —”

I suck a bruise onto his neck and his sounds and the feel of him so deep inside of me means I come only a moment later, body tightening, crying out against his heated skin. He pulls me hard against him, and I moan his name, making him hiss mine.

We just lie there for a minute, catching our breath, the smell of sweat and sex filling the air. I feel like I’m going to pass out, face buried in his neck. It’s not embarrassment I feel, far from it. It’s a good feeling. Being wanted. Being powerful. Making him feel good and feeling good while I’m at it.

Finally I roll off him and we just lie there, staring at the ceiling. He props himself up on an elbow, hair an absolute mess, lips kiss-swollen, cheeks pink, and looks at me long enough that I begin to squirm.

“What was _that_?” he asks. I sling my arm over my face. I don’t know what that was or where it came from. I’ve never had that much confidence before.

“You’re gonna complain?” I ask, feeling that delicious twinge between my thighs. Peeta sits up further, sliding his hand over my hip and stomach, his palm rough against my skin.

“No,” he says lowly. “It was just… a surprise.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t say anything else so eventually I have to pry my arm away and peer up at him. He’s smirking like an idiot.

“You like the control, huh?” he asks, gaze and words unflinching. I cover my face with my arm again. “You do, don’t you?” he says, pulling my arm away and shifting closer. “Not that I mind in the slightest,” he adds, hand sliding between my legs where I’m wet and oversensitive. I gasp, gripping at his wrist but not stopping him.

“Do you like me being in control?” I venture.

“Yeah,” he says. He kisses me, hand beginning to move. “But that’s not what I asked.”

I can feel my breath picking up again. “What?” I ask again, cloudy-headed.

“Is it just me you like to control in bed or is it a thing you like with anyone?”

It’s a valid question. I think of a response with as much care as I can while he rubs my clit, slow and steady.

“Just you, I think,” I manage. “Other guys were—” He knees my thighs open when they threaten to close down around his forearm.

“They were what?” he asks, crooking his fingers.

“They—they weren’t big like you are,” I rasp. “You—you’re bigger than me. Your shoulders—”

He understands right away what I’ve been thinking since Lake Vico. “You like that I can pin you?” he asks, smiling when I nod. “You like that I can fuck you?”

Electricity spirals through me at his words. I nod and he removes his hand so he can slide in between my thighs and press his cock, already hardening, against where I’m slick.

“I don’t think that’s it,” he says. “You like that I’ll do as you ask when you want to feel good.” He comes in close, hitches my thigh over his hip. “You like that I’ll fuck you when you ask me to,” he murmurs, striking exactly at the heart of it.

He’s right. I like his bulk, his broad shoulders, thick torso, muscular thighs. I like that he can cover my body with his. That he can pin me but that he’ll go willingly if I want to pin him. I like that he can smile at me and look like a damn cherub but also speak this filth as he grinds against me.

“Yes,” I cry out. “Yes, Peeta, please.”

He groans, sliding against me. “That’s what I thought,” he says, and then he fucks into me, deep, thick, and braces himself over me, exactly how I want.

I don’t know what time it is when we fall asleep, but in the early hours, Peeta wakes me up by kissing down my neck, hands roaming, and it doesn’t take long for me to come at all, not with my wrists pinned above my head and Peeta above me, telling me I’m beautiful, telling me I’m the hottest thing he’s ever seen, telling me to _come, Katniss, go on_ as pleasure spirals through me.

Morning arrives properly when I wake, aching and needing another six hours of sleep, at 8 am. I drag myself to the bathroom and then back into bed, spying through the gap in the curtains that today looks like a grey, rainy day, so unlike what we’ve been blessed with so far. I curl up against Peeta and his arm hooks around me.

“Where’re you goin’,” he mumbles, still half-asleep.

“Nowhere,” I say, closing my eyes. “Nowhere.”

We finally drag ourselves out of bed two hours later after I tell him that if today is going to be a day of lazing around, hiding from the moodier weather, we have to leave the room for food at least once. I go and take a shower and spray Peeta with the hose when he tries to get in the cubicle with me, and then he takes a shower, coming out shirtless, hair darkened with water, and I have to remind myself of my own rule about leaving this damn room.

Eventually we do, heading to a café just down the street for brunch. I pull on a jacket to combat the slight chill in the air, and marvel at how changed Venice seems in the grey weather. It’s beautiful, no doubt about it, but it seems dimmer, the canals dull rather than sparkling in the sunlight. It’s quieter in the streets too, which I’m glad about. I feel like everyone I pass, be it hotel staff or strangers on the cobbles, can tell what we’ve been doing for the past twelve hours.

I bite my lip to hide a smile, glancing at Peeta as he frowns down at his cell phone. My body remembers the feeling of his against mine like a flashbang, a bright image cast on my eyelids. Over brunch, he keeps giving me bedroom eyes that don’t help the situation, so at least this time I know I’m not the only one with these thoughts running through my mind.

When we leave the café, he cranes his neck to look down the street, the collar of his shirt dropping, and I see a bruise left by me on his neck, purple and red, a stamp against his golden skin, just barely covered when his shirt is properly against his chest.

“Your neck,” I say, pulling at the fabric. “You’re gonna have to button all the way up.”

“It’s your damn fault,” he says, grinning at me.

“Hey, I didn’t hear any complaints.”

“I would’ve tried if I thought I could get a word in edgeways,” he says wryly and I gape at him. He only laughs, ducking out of the way when I try to shove him.

“Peeta!” I scold, though a smile is already pulling at the corner of my mouth. He darts out of reach again, laughing loudly. “I can’t believe you!” I say.

“Hey, hey, you said you liked me, okay, that means you can’t ever be mad at me!” he says, walking backwards and almost tripping as he does so.

We get back to the hotel and try to figure out what we’re gonna do for the rest of the day. We’re both feeling pretty lazy, and with our one goal of the day achieved already, Peeta has the bright idea to suggest that we go and check out the hotel pool.

“So it’s just the ocean, lakes, and rivers you’re not keen on?” I ask him, thinking of the other day on the gondola.

“Pools are usually shallow enough that I can touch the bottom,” he says. “I can handle that.” I scoff at him and he grins. “Besides, at a pool I can sit on the side and watch you swim.” I narrow my eyes at him. “I’ll go ask about it at the front desk,” he says, kissing me on the cheek and then ducking out of the room. I shake my head, wondering where this sudden flirty and faintly obnoxious side has come from, and then look around me, seeing what a mess the room is in. I set about tidying it in places, picking underwear up from the floor, Peeta’s shirt from where he flung it onto the chair pushed against the wall. Then I begin searching through my bag for the swimsuit I know I definitely packed, but that I haven’t had a reason to use for a few months now.

As I search, crouched by my bag where I dumped it on the floor against the wall when I arrived, I lose my balance and knock over Peeta’s rucksack where it’s leaning against the wall right next to mine. It topples onto its side, spilling items from where it isn’t clasped shut at the top.

“Shit,” I mutter, righting the ridiculously heavy bag and beginning to clear his things up. One of the spilled items is one of his notepads, which, lying open on the floor, has coughed out a significant selection of postcards. I gather them up, amazed at the sheer number. I remember him explaining earlier on that he bought postcards to remember where he’d been, rather than other souvenirs, and I know he’s been collecting them ever since. I know he takes the task of picking the best one very seriously.

I can’t help but nosy through them, interested to see where he’s been. The glossy pictures show a myriad of locations in Italy and beyond, an array of cities, towns, landscapes, and landmarks. I turn a few over, reading his messy scrawl. He writes the location and date he visited, with some comments about the sights and sounds of the place. It’s a great way for him to recall his memories, and it’s interesting for me to see what he got up to prior to our meeting.

I find the postcard he bought in Sant’Oreste. On the back, he’s written _met Katniss. She’s from Panem too. She’s really beautiful and smart._

The card from Caprarola, displaying Lake Vico in all its glory. _Caprarola and Lake Vico with Katniss. The lake was stunning—too bad I couldn’t swim but the drive back to Rome was fun._

Rome: _Thought I’d never see Katniss again—so happy to have found her. Met with Finnick and Annie. Katniss lets me stay with her. She can speak Italian and lets me go on about old art. I really like her._

Florence: _Florence with Katniss. She’s really cool. We’re gonna keep travelling together I think. Can’t imagine having to leave her. Florence is stunning._

Pisa: _Pisa with Katniss. Only a day trip but totally worth it. Got to embarrass her at the leaning tower!_

Bologna: _The old university, cheese, buildings. Katniss is something special. Maybe I’m crazy but she’s amazing. All of this is like a dream._

Ferrara: _honestly I can’t remember much. If this all goes south, remember how you couldn’t put into words how happy you were. She’s kind and stubborn and beautiful. She’s bad at driving. An amazing singer._

Padua: _sometimes things can be hard. everyone has their own entire lives inside their heads but being able to find someone who understands you makes it easier._

There’s no card for Venice yet.

I sit slumped onto the floor, my heart hurting as I read and read. These are his travels, and for the last few stops, he’s mostly talking about me. It’s terrifying and exhilarating to see. I’m not alone in all this.

Suddenly the door to our room clicks and the man himself appears. There’s no time for me to act like I wasn’t just reading what is basically a private journal. Peeta is already talking as he steps over the threshold, holding fluffy towels and bed sheets in his arms, stacked until they’re obscuring almost his entire face.

“Hey, they said the pool is open and free to use and they gave me some towels for us to bring with us. And I asked for new sheets because I figured we’d want them—” he stops, spotting me sat on the floor surrounded by postcards. “Oh,” he says.

I stare up at him. “I’m sorry,” I say. He sets down the towels and sheets on the little side table, eyes wide as he looks back at me and the mess around me. I feel guilt spiral through me. I shouldn’t have read them. I should have minded my own business.

“I knocked your bag over and they fell out and…” I trail off, gathering everything up. “I’m sorry. I’m just being nosy. I shouldn’t have looked at them.”

He blinks at me. “As long as you don’t think I’m a creep,” he says.

“No, no, I don’t,” I say, standing, some of the card still in hand. I feel kind of breathless.

“Because objectively it’s a bit weird,” he says. He looks and sounds embarrassed and I hate it. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think you’d see it. How soon I started writing about you.”

I put the cards back into the notebook and set it back into his rucksack.

“I don’t think it’s weird or creepy, Peeta,” I say, wringing my hands and then stopping myself. “I don’t.”

“But…?” he asks.

“No _buts_. I just—I’m surprised. I’m—I can’t believe you like me. That you liked me like that.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve liked you since we met. A lot. But I didn’t want to come on too strong. And then we agreed no pressure. And I knew you were worried because things were kind of intense and in Rome I thought I’d never see you again and then I did and I just kept writing about you and—”

He stops talking when I come closer and pull him down so I can kiss him, holding him close to me, never wanting him to leave, to apologise for what he does so easily. To feel embarrassed about liking people.

“I liked you from the beginning too,” I whisper when we pull apart, noses brushing. He smiles, slow, left side of his mouth lifting first.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I shouldn’t have read what you wrote,” I add. “But Peeta—I’m not upset. Don’t be embarrassed.”

He kisses me again, hands cupping my jaw. “I can’t keep writing them now,” he murmurs. “Not knowing you know.”

I laugh. “I don’t mind it,” I tell him. “I really don’t.”

He hugs me tightly to his chest and I squeeze him back. I’m telling the truth. I can’t ever imagine getting sick of how he makes me feel.

We end up making out on the bed for about half an hour, my head spinning at the notion that he’s been writing stuff about me since the beginning, an eventually we do go down to the pool. Peeta finds some swim shorts from the depths of his backpack and we change and go down to the pool. It’s deserted, so we set up on some loungers and I jump right in. Peeta gingerly climbs into the shallow end and stays there, claiming that the waist-deep water is already past his comfort zone.

So I swim back and forth, not needing the exercise after last night but happy to be able to swim after so long without it, and Peeta does indeed sit on the side and watch me.

“You’re a dog,” I tell him as he leans back on his hands.

“Hey, you’re giving me plenty to talk about on my postcard for Venice,” he says, and I splash him, not relenting until he gets back in. We swirl slowly together like we did at the villa outside Padua, explore the hot tub—Peeta decides the jets are adequate—and although I try to convince him to duck his head under in the pool or let me help him learn to swim, he eventually retreats to one of the loungers to drip dry, and that’s not a problem for me. He can sit there and watch me swim, but I can swim and watch him reclining like a Greek statue.

By the mid-afternoon, we’re pruned and smelling of chlorine and decide to head back up to our room to change. The weather has improved somewhat, but I’m tired after so much exertion, and not particularly eager to traipse around Venice when I could just laze around in a four-poster bed with Peeta.

He doesn’t fight the idea, but instead of getting hot and heavy, he manages to change the sheets and then promptly falls asleep for an afternoon nap. I roll my eyes but don’t bother waking him, instead lying down next to him and reading some of my book, answering texts, or just looking at him. He looks so relaxed in sleep, lips slightly parted, hair falling in riotous waves all over his head.

After a while, my stomach starts rumbling, so I leave a note and step out into the weak sunlight to find sandwiches or pizza or something to bring back to our room. I end up ordering some handmade sandwiches from a deli, and while I wait, I find a text from Gale, asking if I’m definitely coming to Switzerland for my next stop. I promise him I am, and immediately after pressing end, I realise that that means Peeta will have to come too.

I collect our sandwiches and slowly walk back to the hotel, deliberating. I want Peeta to come and meet my friends in person. I know Madge wants it. I know Peeta wants it. So that means I need to actually ask him if he wants to come. But to do that, I need to talk to my two friends first.

So I sit outside the hotel and call Madge, wedging my headphones in and angling myself so I’m in the shade of the building. Gale appears, saying he’s glad I’m committing to coming and visiting them. I know then that he and Madge must have come to the same conclusion that I have. They probably reached it long ago, before I consciously thought about it, but they don’t say anything, clearly waiting for me to actually mention the elephant in the room.

I wait until the conversation has drifted somewhat, and then force myself to ask.

“So,” I say. “About me coming to see you,” I say. Madge narrows her eyes, and Gale’s eyebrows lift in expectation.

“I think I know what this is about,” he says dryly.

“This is about Peeta, I assume?” Madge asks me, and I nod.

“Yeah. We’re… a thing, I guess. Together. We haven’t actually put a relationship label on it yet, but anyway—I wanted to know how you’d feel if he came with me? I know you want me to come visit and I’m more than excited to do so but I would like to bring Peeta with me. If that was cool with you.”

“Of course we’d like to meet him,” Gale says, somehow managing to sound sarcastic when I actually think he’s being sincere.

“I know it’s weird,” I say. “You haven’t actually met him and we haven’t known each other long but—”

I stop myself, shaking my head. These are the same things I was saying to myself when I was spiralling about whether I liked Peeta, whether he liked me back, and look at what happened because of it.

“But I think you’re all going to get along,” I say. “I want you all to meet. Properly. If it’s okay that he stays with me at your place.”

I don’t want anyone to feel put-out or awkward about the arrangement. Not that I think Madge would refuse to let Peeta stay, but where else could Peeta stay? Maybe we could get a hotel in Switzerland, but that would kind of defeat the point of me visiting my friends, and I’m not going to abandon him in a random hotel. He’s… important to me, not a leper.

“Katniss, you don’t need to worry at all,” Madge says, smiling brightly, not hesitating at all. “We have our spare room and it’s about time that we see him in person, you know? I’d be more than happy to have him stay.”

“Gale?” I ask, when he just gives a weary sigh. He rolls his eyes but I can already tell he’s going to say yes, that he’s just being awkward for the sake of being awkward.

“I don’t mind him coming to stay too,” he says.

“You’re so gracious,” I deadpan, and he pulls a childish face.

“Hey, look, he seemed nice enough when we spoke the other day, and I’m all for meeting the guy you picked up on vacation—” He grins when Madge smacks his arm. “So yeah, by all means, bring him along.”

“Don’t be a dick!” I exclaim. “He’s nice. You’re gonna like him!”

“Why don’t you invite Johanna here too?” Madge breaks in, and Gale looks betrayed.

“Hell no,” he says. “I draw the line with Mason. It’s drawn. The line is drawn.”

“I’ll keep her in mind,” I tell Madge, ignoring Gale, though the idea of bringing Johanna into the mix seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Not only would I have to deal with Gale meeting Peeta, Jo meeting Peeta, and vice versa, but it would mean that Madge, Peeta, and myself would be left witnessing the barbed, sarcastic, often mean-spirited remarks that Gale and Jo can’t help but toss around when they’re in each other’s presence. They both said _good riddance_ when Gale moved out of Panem.

“Invite Peeta, please, Katniss,” Madge says. “We have our spare room and I want to meet him so badly. He seemed absolutely lovely the other day and I want to know what it is about him that’s so enraptured you. He’s more than welcome.”

I feel my face burning. “I’m hardly _enraptured_ ,” I deflect, even though my head helpfully supplies me with every moment within the past twelve hours alone that I’ve been exactly that when it comes to Peeta Mellark.

“You totally are,” Gale says. “I’m gonna make fun of you so much.”

“Since when did you become a relationship expert?” I ask him, eyes narrowed.

“My Gale is a romantic at heart,” Madge break in, and Gale looks embarrassed at being caught out and exposed by his wife. I grin.

“I’m sure he is,” I say, and watch my best friend get caught between the need to deny everything and zip his lip and accept defeat.

“Just let us know when you’re definitely coming,” Madge says at the end of the call. She beams, clasping her hands together. “Oh, this is exciting! I can’t wait to see you, Katniss, and to meet Peeta too? It’ll be so much fun.”

“Convince Gale of that, will you?” I ask, and she promises she will and hangs up. I sit outside the hotel for a few minutes longer, happy to have spoken to my friends and to know that they are happy for Peeta to come with me. And that means one thing—I have to ask Peeta if he wants to come. If he wants to extend what has so far been a mostly solo adventure between the two of us and turn it into a ‘meet the friends’ kind of adventure.

I go back to our hotel room, finding him texting away from his position in the middle of the bed.

“I thought you’d gone and abandoned me,” he says. I pass him a sandwich, which he gratefully unwraps.

“Just getting us lunch, sleepyhead,” I say, kicking off my shoes and joining him on the mattress to eat. The TV is on low in the background, some local show, and through the cracked window, I listen to the soft sounds of gently falling drizzle, and the slosh of the canal below.

“I’m super tired,” Peeta says in self-defence. “Someone kept me up all night and _then_ forced me to swim.”

“That was not swimming,” I say, stealing a tomato from his sandwich, knowing he hates them. I wait until we’ve both finished eating before saying what I want to say. I’m not even nervous exactly, at least not about him saying _no_ to the idea of coming with me and staying with my friends in Switzerland, but nervous at asking him to do so, knowing it means that what we have goes beyond the bounds of Italy, that it isn’t just a dreamy, romantic fling anymore. It’s something bigger than that. Something more important.

“So,” I begin. “I know we were gonna spend a bit longer in Venice, but I was wondering if you’d like to cut it short instead and start heading for Switzerland.”

Peeta chews his sandwich thoughtfully. “Oh?” he asks. I try to detect any uncertainty in his tone. He hasn’t actually told me about what he personally intended to do after Venice, but then again, he’s mostly just followed me through northern Italy without much complaint, so I assume that whatever travel plans he had aren’t exactly set in stone. Venice was always my end goal, really, and his presence hasn’t changed that. But Switzerland is another country. It means figuring out what we are. It means things might change.

“I was talking to Gale and Madge,” I say. “You know I’ve been planning to go and stay with them in Lucerne. I mean, I _will_ be going to stay with them.”

Peeta furrows his brow. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“What?”

“I understand if I can’t stay. With your friends. If they aren’t comfortable. But I’d love to meet them properly.”

I reach for his free hand. “Peeta, no, I mean that I already spoke to them and they’re happy for you to stay at their place. I just wanted to know if _you’d_ want to stay as well. There’s plenty of room and I’d like you to come. Meet them. As my boyfriend, I guess.”

That last bit kind of slips out and I panic briefly because we haven’t actually discussed that, but Peeta’s answering smile is so soft and genuine it makes me feel like a melting pat of butter.

“You already spoke to them about me coming?” he asks quietly, tangling our fingers together. I nod. “Of course I’d like to come with you,” he says.

I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. “As my boyfriend?” I ask.

“So long as I can call you my girlfriend,” he says. It all feels ridiculously juvenile and sappy but I can’t help but grin at his words. It’s kind of dumb, but it feels so good.

“So it’s settled,” I say. “You’re coming with me.”

“Yes,” he says, leaning forward and kissing me. “Thank you for asking.”

I beam at him. “Thank you for saying yes.”

“I would have slept outside in the snow if your friends didn’t want me to stay,” he teases, and I push him onto his back and just look at him.

“Are you okay with leaving a bit earlier?” I ask him. “I thought we could go to Milan on the way, spend the night. It might be nice.”

“Hey,” he says, thumbs smoothing over my thighs. “If it’s anything like the past few weeks, I’d follow you back to Panem.”

“Wow, that’s a big promise to make,” I jokingly murmur, but really the notion means a lot. I kiss him again.

“I’m happy to go to Milan,” he says when we break apart. “We can leave tomorrow if you want. Take the train. I’ve always wanted to visit Switzerland.”

“Why don’t we leave right now?” I ask, and he groans.

“I’m _tired_ ,” he says. “And we’ve got this big bed for another night. We really shouldn’t waste it.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV, making out, watching the rain outside, and planning our sudden change of plans. I text Madge, confirm that Peeta and I should be coming in one or two days, and then book our train to Milan. After ordering up room service around 8pm, we try to pack our bags, but halfway through, Peeta pulls me down onto the thick rug at the end of the bed and tugs my shorts away and buries his face between my thighs, and there’s little I can do after that.

The next morning, we spend our last hour in Venice wandering through the city streets with our bags. It’s humid thanks to the overnight rain, the buildings dark with water, the piazzas shining in the weak sunlight. We grab breakfast and talk about the city and how well it’s treated us, and finally it’s time to leave for the train, and I find myself feeling nostalgic about it all. We have one more stop in the country, and then we’re crossing the border, leaving behind, for the time being, the place where we met, the place where we laughed and fought and where I fell for him faster than I want to admit.

I’m blissfully happy as we walk, lugging our bags with us in the general direction of the train station. Peeta picks up a postcard for Venice, and refuses to let me see what he writes on the back.

“I wrote _didn’t get to see much but the ceiling of my hotel room_ ,” he says when I try to grab the card from him.

As we walk closer to the station, having also grabbed some coffee, Peeta gasps.

“Look,” he says, and I twist around from my dreamy gazing at the spires and arches on a building and see a little black and white cat sashaying its way across the top of a wall on the opposite side of the quiet, narrow street. Peeta immediately loses focus and begins trying to coax it over, but cats are aloof in every country, and he ends up having to go right up to the wall and reach up to scratch it behind the ear.

“Isn’t he cute?” he asks me, face bright.

“It might have fleas,” I say. He gives me a withering look.

“You don’t like cats?” he asks.

“I never said that. I just don’t like fleas.”

“Oh, grow up,” he says, and I laugh at how serious he sounds. I watch him interact with the cat, watch the cat wind him around its little paw. “My grandfather had a cat,” Peeta explains after a moment. “When I was little he used to lay about in the vegetable garden and scare away the birds.” He smiles at what is obviously a fond memory. “Winston looked just like you, little one.”

I stand there at watch him. I can imagine a little Peeta, sat in the grass beside some blooming courgettes or pumpkins, a cat by his side, his grandfather just across the way. It’s a nice image, especially given what I’ve otherwise learned about Peeta’s troubled childhood. I guess cats aren’t too bad.

I relent, walking over to join him. “My sister had a cat,” I say. “Grouchy, horrible thing. Always hissed at me ‘till the day he died.”

“You clearly did something to upset him,” Peeta says.

“Buttercup was just an asshole,” I reply, and he grins at me.

Before too long, I keep walking, knowing we have a train to catch. I head down the street, and when I look back, I see Peeta standing in a shaft of sunlight, still petting that damn cat.

“Peeta!” I call, and he looks over at me. “Come on! The train!”

He gives the cat one more good pat and then makes to walk away, but the cat jumps down from the wall and follows, and Peeta gives me a beseeching look as if to say _how can you ask me to walk away from this?_

“Madge and Gale have a cat!” I exclaim. “But you can’t meet her if we miss the train!”

He relents, jogging to catch up with me. As we keep walking, he looks back over his shoulder.

“Aw, he’s still there,” he sighs, and I look back too. The cat sits in the patch of sunlight and watches us all the way down the street.

“You’re such a softy,” I say, and Peeta bumps his elbow against my side.

“I just have a soft spot for stubborn, prickly things,” he says, and I roll my eyes all the way to the train station.

The journey to Milan is calm, quiet, and beautiful. The flat lands of Emilio-Romagna give way to the mountains in the northern reaches of Italy, Milan itself promising mountains on the horizon. I have little to say about Milan itself, other than to say that it’s uglier than I expect and the people so fashionable I feel insecure, but we don’t do much more than walk around the city for an hour and then hole up in our hotel room. When we leave in the morning, Peeta buys a postcard.

“Not much use, really, but I can’t break my streak now,” he says, and I snatch the postcard from him and write something on the back myself.

_Milan. One night in the most fashionable city on earth and Peeta insists on wearing cargo shorts to and from the hotel._

When he grabs the card back, he laughs in a brief, sarcastic exhale of air, and looks at me. “That’s rich coming from you,” he says, and I look down at my own outfit, a pair of jeans and a nice top, and squint back at him. He waggles his eyebrows. “You barely had any clothes on all night.”

I shove my hand in his face, wanting to hush him. We’re in public for god’s sake, waiting for the train. He can’t just say stuff like that even if it’s true.

“Naked it better than those,” I say, looking in disdain at the shorts he currently wears, along with what I now realise is the same shirt and boots I saw him in in Sant’Oreste. It’s all come full-circle, and now look at me. Look at us.

Once we’re on the train and moving, I call Gale and let him know we’re on our way.

“I’ll probably be at work when you arrive, but Madge’ll be there,” he says. “Have a safe journey.”

“See you soon, Gale,” I say, smiling already. I’m excited to actually be heading towards them, my best friends who I haven’t seen for so long. Peeta notices, smiling back at me.

“I can’t wait for Switzerland,” he says. “But I’m gonna miss Italy a hell of a lot.”

I grab his hand, squeeze it. “Me too. We’ll have to go back one day.”

He pulls my hand towards him, presses his lips to my knuckles, eyes shutting for a moment.

“If you had told me a year ago I’d be travelling into Switzerland with someone like you, I never would have believed it,” he says quietly. “Thank you, Katniss. For letting me stay.”

“Always,” I say, a wave of emotion hitting me so that any further words get caught in my chest. Peeta smiles, eyes shining.

“Always,” he echoes, and the spike of anxiety that threatens me over the immensity of just that one word is eased, just like that.

It’s a four-hour train ride to Lucerne, and I don’t mind one bit of it. We drink tea and coffee, eat sticky cheese buns from the cart, and take in the evolving landscape as we fly through it. The land around Milan melts away into the mountains of Italy’s northern border and into Switzerland. It’s absolutely stunning, and we catch glimpses of snow-capped peaks and sparkling lakes. We pass by the very tip of Lake Como, through the Italian-speaking Lugano, through sweeping valleys and soaring mountains. We zip through seemingly endless tunnels and are blinded by the light when the surface world is returned to us, imposing peaks holding tiny villages and towns captive amidst the trees. It’s absolutely breathtaking, and all I can think about is the country I’m leaving behind.

Not forever, of course, but travelling through Italy knowing it’s where I parents met would have been enough, but to add onto it the fact that I now have Peeta by my side? It’s so much more than I ever could have asked for. I might have deep down wished for a person of my own and never expected it. I certainly didn’t expect this. Peeta. I look across at him as he gazes though the glass, chin in his hand, and try to come to terms with exactly how grateful I am to have him here with me. He’s done so much for me and I know I don’t deserve someone as good as him. Someone so kind, someone who is patient and honest and who loves so deeply.

This next step in our travels represents a next step in what I have with him, and I’m excited about it. Thrilled by it. Finally, I’m truly, truly happy, and I don’t think that happiness is going anywhere anytime soon. So long as Peeta is there, I know I’ll feel safe and understood and that someone has my back. I can only hope I can offer him the same.

We sit and talk about Italy, reminiscing, remembering, and then talk about Switzerland, about dreams of skiing and drinking hot cocoa as the snow falls around us. It might be a bit early for the heaviest snowfall, I say to him, and he just shrugs it off.

“We’ve got time,” he says. “We can stay longer if we want to.”

Around ninety minutes in, Peeta steals my jacket from me and goes to sleep. I occupy myself with my book, with staring outside, with watching him and trying to stop myself smiling like a dope. I just _know_ Gale is going to tease me about it.

I try to predict exactly how Peeta meeting Gale and Madge is going to go down. I think Madge and Peeta will get on like a house on fire—they’re both a kind of person who is endlessly kind and thoughtful but with a wicked sense of humour to boot. Gale is more prickly, like me, but in his short-tempered attitude he’s more self-assured than I am, more obnoxious in his stubbornness. But I think he and Peeta will get on. Peeta won me over, after all.

Madge texts me sporadically, updating me on the guest room, about their plans to take Peeta and I to the best food spots in Lucerne, about going for a hike—unlike Peeta, Madge is a keen hiker, thanks to her Swiss roots—and about giving us a hit list for best places to visit in the country.

**Madge:** _god, I’m so happy you’re going to be here, Katniss, you have no idea how much we’ve missed you!_

I grin at my phone. She and Gale (and Johanna) have been so enduring with me ever since my mom and Prim passed, checking in on me the best they can even when I was blocking everyone and everything out. To know that finally, _finally_ , I’m going to see them again is a dream come true.

It’ll be different of course, having Peeta there too. With Annie and Finnick, my relationship with Peeta was just barely a friendship, fledging in its entirety, and they were just as new to me. From my perspective, it was a much more even playing field. But this time it’ll be me introducing a guy I’ve known for just over a month as my boyfriend—and doesn’t that make me wish badly that Prim was here just to see her coo over the romance of it all—and me reuniting with my old friends. I suppose it’ll feel oddly exposing to be around them with Peeta. It’s been just the two of us exclusively for a long period of time, just each other’s company, just the two of us getting to know one of each other. There hasn’t been anyone else to observe. No one else to alter our dynamic.

It’ll be weird, I know that much. Weird at first, and then hopefully Peeta will slot in place just like he did for me. Turn into a presence and a person that we all wonder how we ever did without.

I ask Peeta about it when he wakes just before we arrive in Zug, about whether he was nervous to have me meet his friends, about how nervous he is to meet mine.

“I knew Annie and Finn would like you,” he says, running his hands through his hair to try and make it more presentable. “And I kind of already knew that I liked you a lot by that point and I’d talked about you to them after you dropped me off in Rome.” He shrugs. “It felt pretty natural.”

“So you’re saying you’ve introduced them to girls two days after meeting them?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes.

“I’m not answering that question,” he says, even after I prod him. “As for meeting _your_ friends… I’m shitting myself, to be honest.”

“Why?” I blurt out, before remembering Gale’s face and thinking _duh, that’s at least part of the reason why_.

“I can tell they mean a lot to you and it’s just been the two of us for a while. I know they must have all these preconceived notions about me. I mean, come on, they thought I was gonna kidnap you at first.”

“Hey, that thought did cross my mind as well, and look how well that turned out,” I joke, and he shoots me an unimpressed look.

“ _I mean_ that this feels important. First in-person impressions and all that. They might hate me and then you’ll rethink everything and question whether you like me just because we were travelling together and then I’ll have to roam around Switzerland all by myself and that would be really depressing.”

“Are you seriously comparing our relationship to Stockholm syndrome?” I deadpan.

“Good thing we’re in Switzerland then,” he retorts, and I snort in disbelief.

“Peeta, Stockholm is in _Sweden,_ ” I say, and his ears go red as he grimaces in embarrassment.”

“See, I’m actually _really_ dumb and I managed to fool you all this time and now your friends are going to show you the truth,” he says, lifting his hands in the air as I laugh at him.

“You’re gonna be fine,” I say, and he scrubs his face with his hands and groans like he doesn’t agree one bit.

I repeat my sentiment to him after we’ve gotten off the train, hired a car, and are driving towards Lucerne. Peeta is peering at his map even though my phone has already plotted a route out for us, but don’t say anything, because I can tell he’s nervous.

“You’re gonna be fine,” I say, reaching across and patting his thigh. “They’re nice.”

Peeta braces his elbow on the window and rubs his temple. “I feel like I’m meeting my in-laws,” he groans melodramatically.

“Well, you don’t ever need to worry about that,” I tell him, and he gives a fraught laugh.

“Yeah, two for two on that,” he retorts. “Look as us, we’re meant to be.”

I laugh too, something I didn’t think I’d be able to do even a few months ago, certainly not about the fact that both my parents and only sibling are gone. It’ll never not be a stab in the gut, but like with most pain, I’ll learn to live with it, to not die because of it. Peeta is a much-needed balm. I think he came along at just the right time, pulling me out of my lonesome thoughts and into a world that was brighter and more hopeful than I was starting to think it ever would be.

About ten minutes out from Madge and Gale’s place, he folds up his map and fiddles with his hair.

“I should change,” he says. “Some jeans or something. You’re right, cargo shorts are ugly.”

He reaches into the backseat and begins rummaging through his rucksack, eventually pulling out a pair of jeans, even as I protest and tell him to wait, tell him it doesn’t matter.

“Don’t look,” he says, unzipping his shorts.

“You are actually insane,” I say, trying to keep an eye on the road even as he wiggles out of his shorts and into some jeans while still in his seat. “They’re not gonna care, Peeta.”

“ _I_ care,” he says. “I have to make a good impression.”

“We’ve been travelling all day, they’re not gonna expect us to look outstanding,” I say, laughing in disbelief. Peeta twists around, shoves his cargo shorts back into his bag.

“Hey, I need a lot more help than you do,” he says, and I put my hand on his shoulder.

“They’re going to love you,” I say, partly to try and calm my own increasing heartrate. I am nervous. More than I hoped to be. It’s nerves and excitement, swirling in my head.

Finally we reach the right house, pulling up in front. We sit there for a moment, both just breathing, and then the door opens and Madge appears at the top of the driveway. She waves hugely, shouting something I don’t hear, and then vanishes back into the house.

I look at Peeta, whose eyes have gone huge.

“You look cute,” I say.

“Jesus,” he says, and then we get out of the car.

Madge comes barrelling down the driveway, her long skirt flapping, her golden hair piled high on her head in a messy bun, effortlessly beautiful. She could easily be a milk maiden high in the Alps.

“Hallo! Hallo!” she cries, and then she’s hugging me tight and I’m hugging her back and the emotions are coming faster and harder than I expected and I’m crying and she’s crying.

“Madge, oh my god,” I say, pulling back. She cups my face in her hands.

“Katniss,” she says, head tilting, smile wobbling. “You look so happy. I can’t believe you’re finally here. I’ve missed you so much, you have no idea.”

I pull her back in for a hug, laughing though my tears. “I am happy,” I tell her. “I missed you too.”

She holds me at arm’s length and looks me over. “You’re so tanned,” she says wistfully, and then she looks past me at Peeta. “So is this handsome gentleman,” she adds.

“Madge, this is Peeta,” I say. I take a breath. “My boyfriend.”

She purses her lips half-scheming, half-overjoyed, and steps towards Peeta, who sticks out his hand.

“Oh, please,” she says. “Let me hug you.”

“Okay,” he laughs, a little bewildered, and then she’s hugging him and he’s patting on the back and looking at me even wider eyes. “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you in person. Thank you so much for letting me stay.”

“Well of course,” she says, pulling back. “I couldn’t say no. Thank _you_ for looking after our Katniss.”

He rubs the back of his neck, bashful. “I honestly think it was the other way around,” he says.

Madge claps her hands together, joyful, bubbly, exactly the person I left behind after the funeral, when I disappeared to be alone. God, it’s so good to see her. It feels like life is coming back towards me, coming right back into focus. It feels like finally the world is becoming more balanced. It will never be the same, and it’ll be hard, but I’ll regain my footing and step forward once again.

We grab our bags and go into the house, Madge asking about our journey, talking about the guestroom and the house and constantly saying how nice it is to have us both to stay. When she leaves us in the guestroom to collect our thoughts, Peeta blows out a breath.

“She is so nice,” he says, looking around the room.

“You’ve got Gale to contend with yet,” I remind him, before coming in close and kissing him. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say, and he smiles, the worried tension in his shoulders relaxing somewhat.

“I know,” he murmurs. “I can’t believe I’m here with you.”

He hugs me, swaying from side to side, arms wrapped around me. I squeeze him back, inhaling, smelling the scent of his soap, his cologne.

“Come on,” I eventually say. “We can’t stay in here forever.”

The next few hours are spent with Madge giving us a tour of the house. I’ve only ever been here once, years ago when Gale first moved and they bought the place, and it hasn’t changed massively. It has great views looking out into the valley and mountains beyond, and is homely and cosy. Madge makes tea and coffee and we sit out on the balcony and talk. We talk and talk and talk and I’m amazed at how easily conversation flows. Peeta and Madge do indeed get on well, and I witness with my very eyes as Peeta relaxes.

And then, of course, Gale arrives from work, and we have to do introductions again.

“Gale, this is Peeta,” I say, giving him a look that says _be nice or else_. Gale sticks out his hand, standing tall and dark in the kitchen, a glower personified with his big beard and long hair tied back at the base of his neck. Peeta smiles genially at him and shakes.

“It’s so nice to meet you in person,” he says. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Sure,” Gale says, assessing. Madge elbows him. Gale clears his throat. “So. How was the journey?”

“Ugh, Gale, we all know you don’t actually care,” Madge cuts in, rolling her eyes. Gale rolls his eyes back at her.

“Fine,” he says. “Peeta. How’d you feel about helping me cook?”

Peeta’s face brightens. “Oh no,” I say, at the same time as he says, “I feel great about it.”

“Peeta’s a great cook,” I warn, and Gale pulls a face.

“I’m sure,” he says, and then he’s telling me and Madge to get lost. “Let me interrogate him man to man.”

“Are you gonna talk about sports?” I ask sarcastically. “What about your favourite brand of knife?”

“I actually like Yaxell knives,” Peeta says, because of course. Gale reaches over on the counter and pulls out a shiny black kitchen knife from the block, waving it.

“This is a Tojiro household,” he says, and Peeta laughs. They’re off to a flying start.

Madge and I go and sit outside and keep catching up while the boys cook and the sun begins to set. When Peeta comes through with cocktails, I catch his wrist.

“How’s it going?” I ask him, and he slides his hand into mine.

“I don’t know,” he says ruefully. “He likes the Capitol Raiders better than the Panem Legends, so we’re off to a rocky start.”

I offer a faux look of concern. “Oh, no, Peeta, I’m so sorry. And he doesn’t even like your knife brand.”

He gives me a withering look and kisses me on the cheek. “You just stay out here, we’ll do the heavy lifting,” he says over his shoulder as he leaves, and I smile, pleased, and sip my cocktail.

As soon as the door has shut, Madge fixes me with a look, her rosy cheeks bunched as she grins hugely.

“What?” I ask.

“He is absolutely _adorable_ ,” she whispers like it’s a conspiracy. “I can’t believe it, Katniss. He’s so nice.”

I nearly make a joke but can’t get the words out. Because Peeta is the best. He really is. Just thinking about him makes me feel all warm inside.

“Look at you, you’re smitten,” Madge says, making my face burn. “Don’t get embarrassed,” she says. “It’s so lovely to see, Katniss. After the last few years you’ve had, I couldn’t ask for anything else.”

“It’s early days,” I shrug, the masochistic side of my psyche jumping out. Madge shakes her head.

“Are you kidding? That man is head over heels for you. I can see it, clear as anything. In ten years I’m going to remind you of what you just said and you’ll laugh at how stupid you sound.”

I look out at the mountains, at the sun dying in waves of gold and orange and pinkish-red on the highest peaks.

“I’m happy for you, Katniss,” Madge enthuses. “And by the looks of it, Gale likes him too.”

“Gale is just as bad as he was when we were kids,” I say.

“He’s just protective. You can’t blame him.”

“No. But—”

Madge puts her hand on my knee, stopping me. “Look,” she murmurs. “After the funeral you just left, okay? And that was scary, for all of us. And then to hear that you were going around with a stranger? It was so out of character for you that _Gale called Johanna_.” Her eyes bug out comically. “We knew you needed space but we were worried you’d put yourself in danger, or do something you’d regret.”

“I think I might have if it was someone else,” I mumble, staring into the middle distance. I think of how it was prior to Sant’Oreste. I was okay. I was fine. But I wasn’t happy. I was travelling and being at peace but I was alone, and lonely for it. Peeta really did appear when I needed him to.

Madge nods thoughtfully. “I’m glad it’s all worked out,” she says.

I nod along with her. “Me too,” I reply. “I’m glad I met him.”

She beams. “You two are so sweet. I don’t even think you see it. I could tell from the moment I saw you two together by the car—” She puts her hand over her chest. “—It’s rare to find two people who seem so in sync already. I can already see that he’s been good for you.”

“Madge…” I say, a lump building in my throat. She flaps her hand.

“Don’t cry on me now,” she says, standing up. “Come on, come inside before it gets too cold. We need to make sure Gale isn’t scaring Peeta away.”

Not long after, dinner is served. I pour more drinks and observe out of the corner of my eye as Peeta and Gale work together. There’s that weird stilted thing of strangers put together with no choice but to get along, and they don’t quite flow, but Peeta is smiling, seeming genuinely relaxed, and Gale is talking to him about his siblings, so clearly he isn’t feeling much animosity towards him.

“I’m the youngest,” Peeta says as we all sit down to what looks to be a delicious meal. “My brothers always bullied me so I’m afraid I don’t know what it’s like to be the one ordering siblings around.”

“Gale loves telling his siblings what to do,” I say, sitting down next to Peeta. “And everyone else, for that matter.”

“Someone has to!” he says defensively.

“I’m an only child, so no one can tell me shit,” Madge says, lifting her class as Peeta grins at her. “Right, let’s have a toast,” she announces, and we lift our glasses in unison. “To Katniss, for being here with us, _finally_ , and to be looking so happy and healthy for it. And to Peeta, a new friend, a miracle-worker, who we are also so glad is here!”

We clink our glasses together and conversation flows with ease. Madge and Gale don’t have the same sophisticated air that Annie and Finnick had, but even though Switzerland couldn’t be further from Panem, it feels like it. Woodlands, mountains, log cabins. Good friends and good food. A place to consider a home for the first time in a long time.

My friends lob question after question at Peeta, who takes it all in his stride. He admits it was kind of crazy to go and travel with someone he’d only known for a few days, but then just shrugs it off.

“I wouldn’t have asked for anything to change,” he says, and Madge puts her chin in her hands, smiling dreamily.

Later, when dinner is complete, wine has been consumed, and Peeta is talking to Madge about Swiss art in the living room, gesturing hugely while she nods enthusiastically and pulls out a relevant book from their bookshelf, Gale elbows me where we’re stood in the kitchen catching up. He’s been updating me on his siblings and mother, about his job, about him and Madge, but I also desperately want to know what he genuinely thinks about Peeta.

“So,” I say, folding my arms over my chest. He seems to know what’s coming, because he puts down his precious Tojiro knives and faces me head-on. “What do you think?”

“About what?” he asks, and I glare at him.

“Don’t be such a misery-guts,” I say. “About Peeta. Tell me what you think of him.”

“He supports the Panem Legends,” he sneers. “I don’t trust anyone who supports their home team.”

I close my eyes in exasperation. When I open them again, he grins. I grab a dishtowel and throw it at him.

“I’m serious,” I say. “He was nervous to meet you and Madge, and then the first thing you do is wave a knife in his face?”

“In a non-threatening manner—”

“Gale, oh my god—”

“Fine, fine! But you have to understand that I needed him to know that I could kill him if need be. If I got bad vibes.”

“Johanna has already claimed that duty,” I say. “She said she’d dig a hole in the woods if need be.”

“Look,” Gale says, suddenly sobering. “All I’m saying is that you disappeared for weeks at a time as you went from one country to another and then when you reappeared, you had some random guy with you. I just wanted to know everything was okay. That _you_ were doing okay.”

“I told you I was.”

“I know, but—”

“And I _told_ you to trust my judgement. I know it was crazy—I know that, trust me, I had plenty of times to question what I was doing. But you have to trust my judgement.”

Gale’s eyebrows lift. “Catnip, of course I do,” he says, and I squint at him, because that feels like a lie. “I just knew that you wanted to be alone after the funeral, and that’s fine, I had no problem with that except when you didn’t call.” He pokes me meaningfully on the arm. “But then you appear with some guy and you’re all evasive about it and don’t even _tell_ me and Madge for ages and I just thought—” He stops, furrowing his brow. Then, quieter, “I was just concerned that after everything you’d been through, if you’d gotten hurt again…” He shakes his head. I frown at him, surprised and feeling guilty at how genuinely disturbed he seems to be. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself, if something went wrong. Even if it wasn’t anything to do with him. That’s all.” He’s gruff by the time he finishes speaking, and averts his gaze.

For as long as Gale and I have been friends, we’ve never talked about our feelings very much. It started because I was younger than him and awkward, and then compounded by our general personalities, too alike for our own good, and then the drama with him saying he liked me and me outright rejecting him… _feelings_ haven’t necessarily been the glue that ties us together.

So to hear him say this now… it brings a tear to my eye.

“Gale,” I mumble, a little choked up.

I see it all, now, from his perspective. His best friend’s mother and sister die—a mother and sister who were like family to him too—and then I whisk myself away on a solo travel extravaganza, often with radio silence for weeks at a time. It was hard for me. I was so caught up in my grief that I didn’t stop to think about reassuring my loved ones who were still around to care for me.

I put my hand on his forearm, squeezing. We’re not the hugging type, either. He clears his throat. Picks up the dishcloth just so it’s in his hands.

“I’ve said my piece,” he says. “He seems nice otherwise. You seem very comfortable with him. You seem happy.”

I nod. “I am,” I say. I smile at him. “I really am. And I didn’t expect it either. He just… came out of nowhere.”

“The best things do,” Gale says, looking across at his wife, who is now doing the gesturing, while Peeta nods with enthusiasm.

Gale and I look back at each other. He nods, sniffs. I smile blearily at him.

“Jesus,” I say, and he laughs.

“What a mess,” he says. Then, brighter, “I still can’t believe you picked up a goddamn Mellark.”

I roll my eyes. “Just because his brother beat you at high school football.”

“That was a decade ago, I’m so over it.”

“Sure, Gale.”

“I am!” he exclaims, and I laugh. It feels good to be around him again. I missed him and his grouchiness. We stand and smile, lost in our own heads for a moment, and then he throws the dishcloth back at me. “How are you, really?” he asks.

I think for a moment. “I’m good,” I tell him. “It still—it still hurts. In Rome I went to the church where my mom and dad met. That was… a lot. Peeta was there. I didn’t manage to scare him off. But yeah, I’m getting through it, you know? It sucks, but it’s getting easier.”

“You think he’s had something to do with that?”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I think he has.” I stare at the kitchen tiles, thrown back just a few weeks, to when things were so different. I think of everything me and Peeta have talked about, in piazzas, in cafes and restaurants, on walks down winding streets under the yellow sun and blue sky. It really has helped, all of it. To find someone who listens to me, who understands. Who wants me back.

“We’re similar in a lot of ways,” I say. “He’s grieving too. I think we found each other at the right moment.”

Gale nods, looking sad and grateful at the same time. “Good,” he says. He gets up from where he was leaning against the kitchen counter. “Now, come on, that’s enough heart-to-heart. I’ve got to bully your boyfriend some more before Madge gives him a god complex.”

“Don’t be jealous,” I snort, sticking out my foot to try and trip him up. I’m glad the snarky aspect of our relationship has only weakened during our time apart.

“I’m not jealous,” he says. “Madge doesn’t like blonds.”

“Good thing we do, then,” I reply, and he taps his beer against mine.

“Cheers to that,” he grins, and we head back into the living space. I sidle up to Peeta.

“How’s it going?” I ask. He’s a little tipsy, merry as he grins down at me, cheeks pink.

“It’s going very well,” he says. “You didn’t tell me Madge studied art history.”

“As a _minor,_ ” Madge reminds him.

“Chemistry isn’t as interesting as art history,” I remind her, and she scowls. I look back at Peeta. “Seriously,” I say, looking at him. He’s all soft and golden and tilting his head as he looks at me. “You still feeling nervous?”

“Not really,” he replies, arms going around my waist. “You were right. They are nice.”

“It’s because you are,” I remind him. “They don’t just let anyone into the group, you know?”

“You think Annie and Finn would like them?”

“Gale would be _so_ intimidated by how attractive they both are,” I say, and Peeta laughs, and Gale says _stop talking about me_ and I pull Peeta down onto the couch so I can lean against him and just think about how nice it is, to be here, to be alive, despite everything.

It’s late when we finally all say goodnight. I’m yawning, Peeta is yawning as if he didn’t have a two hour nap earlier today, and it’s all been a lot of excitement for everyone. I hug Madge and ruffle Gale’s hair like he’s a kid and not a seven-thousand-feet tall grown man, and then we go our separate ways.

In the guestroom, I stub my toe on Madge’s elliptical machine and Peeta spends about five minutes trying to navigate the en suite shower—“Do Swiss showers do something other showers don’t?” he cries until I barge in and figure it out for him to stop his lamentation—and then it’s changing into pyjamas and brushing teeth and curling up into bed, warm and tipsy and happy. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Peeta ambles out of the shower after a few minutes, towelling off his hair.

“I’m so used to being in hotel rooms with you,” he tells me. I lay on my side, propped up on my elbow, and watch his back muscles as he moves. “It’s nice to be in an actual home, you know?”

“Sure is,” I say, patting the mattress when he finishes drying his hair. He climbs under the covers and hauls me close, and I press my lips to his, one hand tangling in his damp hair, the other grazing his chest.

“You did good today,” I tell him.

“Yeah?” he asks. I nod. “Glad I got your seal of approval. That’s really what I was after.”

“I mean Gale and Madge, dummy,” I clarify. “They like you.”

“He threatened me with a knife.”

“To be fair, you do support the Panem Legends.”

“Will people stop giving me shit for that?” he asks, his serious tone not matching his sparkling eyes and bright smile.

“No,” I say, kissing him again. “It’s the worst thing about you.”

“There are objectively many, many more terrible things about me,” he says, hand dipping down my back to my ass, pulling me against him, thigh wedging comfortably between mine.

“Yeah, you can’t swim,” I say, and he laughs, low in his belly. “And you’re a terrible dancer.”

“You _love_ my dancing. That’s how I reeled you in.”

“And you think the best reaction to emotional turmoil is to climb a hill and paint some fucking trees.”

He laughs again, loud enough that Madge and Gale must be able to hear.

“They’re my emotional support trees!” he says, and I laugh at him. He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “Look, I can easily list off like ten things that are bad about you, so don’t even try it.”

“I _dare_ you,” I challenge him, and he kisses me once, twice, three times, each one deeper and slower than the next, making me feel it down to my toes, and then he has to go and ruin it by kissing loudly all over my face.

“Okay, no, you can sleep in the car,” I say, pushing his face away, and he groans, wrapping his arms around me so I can’t get free. We lay there in companionable silence for a few moments, just listening to the quiet of the house. Through the cracked window, there’s nothing but the distant sound of cow bells in the mountain air.

Finally, I kiss him on the cheek. “I’m glad I met you, Peeta,” I say.

He hums sleepily. “I bet you are.”

“Madge likes you. Gale will come around, I promise.”

“Those two are like chalk and cheese. Or like… a really cheerful spring day versus a literal smack in the face.”

“I’ll tell Gale you compared him unfavourably,” I threaten, and Peeta gives me an innocent look.

“Who said I wasn’t actually describing Madge?”

I smile, curling into his side. He sighs, sounding as exhausted as I feel.

“What are we gonna do after Switzerland?” he asks me after a while.

“I don’t know,” I mumble, already falling asleep. He smells so good, and he’s so warm, and the bed would feel awfully empty without him.

“I’m gonna take you back to Italy one day,” he says, words so quiet they’re like silk brushing over me.

“Peeta,” I mumble into his chest. “Go to sleep.”

He finally does, kissing my hair once before his breathing slowly levels out. I think of what he said. What he promised, and I feel it in my chest, a warm flame coaxed from ashes. When I’m sure he’s asleep, I shift slightly, peer up at him, see his hair and skin glowing pale in the blue light, so different to that bright midday sun from that piazza in Sant’Oreste, and yet so comfortingly the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And that’s that, folks. Thank you all for your delightful reviews. I wrote this feeling shitty about 2020 and needing some escapism and I’ve been more than happy to take you all with me. Hopefully you enjoyed this fic as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Fingers crossed I’ll write a Christmas-themed fic in this universe and upload it in December, because I like the warm fuzzy feeling I get from these two <333
> 
> saturnblushes on tumblr and pinterest if you want to say hi!
> 
> Edit 28/01: dandecatlady on tumblr made a gorgeous piece of art to accompany this fic, which you can lovingly gaze at [here!](https://dandecatlady.tumblr.com/post/641204272196960256)


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